We had a Harry Potter party to celebrate the premiere of the Chamber of Secrets movie! 4-5 moms got together and planned the whole thing in a couple of hours. We decided not to tell any of the kids and made up Hogwarts letters and sealed them with wax, inviting them to come to Hogwarts to start their term, with the date and time of the party. They were all REALLY excited about this! Once they arrived, they found a "wall" of gray streamers on the front porch with the signs "9" and "10" on each side (Platform 9 3/4). We had all different kinds of Halloween decorations out to decorate the dining room as the Great Hall - caldrons, pumpkins and candles. They went on into the "Great Hall" to find the Sorting Hat (old witch's hat with a face glued on similar to the movie). We used my brother and a baby monitor and sorted the kids into houses, with the Hat telling the kids information that it "knew" about them (provided by the parents!) and each one received a paper medallion necklace for their house (color-coded - red, yellow, green and blue). Since we had quite a few kids of varying ages, we decided to pre-sort before the party to make sure that the teams had at least one of the older kids who had read all of the books (to make the trivia questions used later in the party more fair). This older kid was the house prefect. We moved on from there to a scavenger hunt. This part of the planning took the longest to set up. We thought up 5-6 items for EACH TEAM, such as Harry's glasses, the Sorcerer's Stone, Scabbers, the House Cup, ... and so on. Each of the items were different for each team. The parents had an absolute blast planning this part. We really had to get creative to find enough items, and trying to find something to use for the hunt was REALLY fun for us! Luckily, we had a great store that had lots of cool Halloween things and nickel and dime types of toys (like plastic rats and plastic coins). We then sat down and figured out where to hide the items (in the house, outside and also some in the neighborhood) and wrote rhyming clues. The clues had to be solved before the kids knew just what they were looking for and then they had to figure out where the clue was telling them to look, such as "Oh my, oh me! Without these, Harry can't see! If you want to help him, go and see if you can find these under a tree." (Harry's glasses). We gave each house prefect the first clue for their own hunt. Each house had their own little hunt going at the same time. The next clue for the house's own particular hunt was found with the item they had just found. We did it this way to avoid clusters of too many kids looking for the same thing and to be able to decide a winner, because the last thing on everyone's hunt was the only thing they had in common - it was an envelope telling them they were going to the movie that night after the party, along with "tickets." Winner was awarded house points. Next, we had a few classes - divination (upstairs, of course!) with lots of pillows and a "magic dream ball" light for a crystal ball. We made paper "fortune tellers" (cootie catchers) for all of the kids and they had a blast telling each others' fortunes. Transfiguration was playdoh with instructions to make certain creatures from the book, such as Norbert or Fluffy. Points were awarded for innovation! Potions was in the dungeon (basement rec room) and we made silly putty. We didn't tell the kids right away but waited to see if anyone would find the golden snitches (ping pong balls painted gold with feather glued on) that were hidden around the house and when they were found, we awarded house points. During the party, as we were switching the houses to different classes, we would ask trivia questions and also award points for correct answers. If the kids got out of hand, we deducted points. If they helped straighten up without being asked, we awarded LOTS of points. Each set of parents participated somehow by being a professor or other character and we all tallied up the house points at the end of the party. Hufflepuff won the House Cup! We had pizza (simple, easy and two moms helped cook while the classes were going on) and cookies and soda. The party lasted about 3 hours and both kids and parents had tons of fun. We may have to do it again for Prisoner of Azkaban movie!