HARRY POTTER 7-10 YR OLDS For my daughter's 7th birthday we had the Harry Potter theme.  The majority of her friends had either read or seen the movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, so they were familar. INVITATIONS- I used green caligraphy ink and yellowed parchment paper to write a formal acceptance letter to Hogwarts. I used the book's letter for most of the wording. I addressed the same yellowed parchment envelopes to her friends in this manner Liam Jones, 22 Elm Street, the bedroom down the hall. This is because Harry's Hogwarts letter states the cupboard under the stairs. I hand delivered each invitation to the child's house, slipping the letter under the door, as if an owl had delivered it.  DECORATIONS and PROPS- The children had been advised in their Hogwart's letters to dress in wizard gear so everyone came as a witch or wizard. I had premade black felt witch hats for each child. We used sticks from our backyard as wands, first I peeled the bark of each twig.  We have a tulip poplar tree which was very easy to peel its bark.  I then spray painted the wands a dark brown as w/o the bark the wands were very light colored. The real Potter fans loved the wands because they were more like the movie and did not resemble a magician's wand. We had a burley uncle dress up like Hagrid and he greeted the children outside as they arrived. Our front door was platform 9 and 3/4, but as they entered they were basically at Hogwarts. We sorted children with the hat-found at party store, we used a stool from our kitchen. I was dressed as Professor McGonagle, and would place the hat on each child's head, my husband would hide around the corner and do the hat's "songs" and announce the house to which the child now belonged. Our kitchen was the Great Hall. I made banners for each house and only two eight foot tables. Slytherin and Ravenclaw shared and Griffendore and Hufflepuff shared a table. This was due to space. I had placed a feast on each table, using various platters and cups. We used crystal wedding trays for mounds of cut fruit, sundae cups and soda glasses with various m&m's, nuts, mints, skittles, etc. There was snack food everywhere across the entire table like a huge royal feast. We used silver goblets for each child to drink from. I have seen plastic versions of these, the ones we used were from a wedding supply store.  My daughter's birthday is in August and our local party suply store had just started displaying Halloween items. We used the black caudrens everywhere for decorations and to hold food, prizes, etc. I gave only the wands, hats, and a bag of Bertie Botts Beans to each child. I also had a small bowl of the beans on each table.  The kids enjoyed taking risks on what bean they would eat. I bought a roll of paper from the craft store and made my own stone wallpaper. This made the room look like a castle. We used the basement as the dungeon. My husband was Professor Snape. He conducted potions class as our birthday party activity. We labled items like vinegar and baking soda Bat spit and powdered bones. He then instructed his students in making several potions which were simple science experiments, like foaming,bubblinb brew from adding the baking soda to vinegar, inflating a balloon by magic using baking soda and vinegar again and making the gloop from cornstarch. At then end of the lesson, the party was almost over, we put on the Harry Potter DVD while we waited for Parents to arrive.