This year, my son is having a Harry Potter Party. We sent out invitations printed on "scroll" graphic paper (from office supply store). The invitations said
........................................................................... Dear Sir or Madam, we are pleased to invite you to a special session of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and
Wizardry. The special session will be held on (party date) in honor of the grand celebrant of his sixth birthday, (child's name). Please meet at the leaky cauldron at (child's
address) at 2:00 sharp to enter Diagon alley. Hogwarts Express leaves from platform 9 ¾ promptly at 2:30, so do not be late.
After a start of session feast (of cake and ice cream) Hagrid, teaching Care of Magical Creatures; and Professor Snape, teaching Potions; will start classes. We will finish the year with the race for the Quidditch cup, refereed by Madam Hooch. Muggle parents are welcome. Please dress for the weather outside. Sincerely, (Parent's Name) Deputy Headmistress ........................................................................... At the party, we had child sized tables set up all along the front side of the house as our "Diagon Alley". We had the older brother, sisters, and a couple of cousins who were 10 and older as the owners of the shops. They got to hand out the prizes for the goody bags. ........................................................................... The guests entered at the carport, where we had a table labeled "The Leaky Caldron" with a cauldron drawn with white chalk on brown construction paper. At this table, the guest each got a black lunch sack (goody bag) and a sheet of star stickers to decorate it with while we waited for all of the guests to arrive. Then the guests were presented with a plastic Harry Potter cup. ........................................................................... The next stop for our little witches and wizards was Gringott's Bank. Here, we had a goblin puppet who handed out little bags of chocolate coins. The kids loved the Goblin. ........................................................................... Next was a stop at Flourish and Blot's for their school supplies. Here each guest received a pencil and 2 small notebooks that had a metallic sparkly cover. (from oriental trading) We had the "Owner" of the shop offer to autograph his biography "Splendiferous Spells" (which was a short wizard story copied from the internet and bound with construction paper.) ........................................................................... Madam Malkin's Robes for all occasions was the next stop on our way. We made capes out of Black garbage bags and hats out of construction paper and star stickers for each child. They also got to put a "bendy wizard" and a lightning bolt tattoo (from oriental trading) into their goody bags ........................................................................... The next stop was the Magical Menagerie. Here each student got to choose either a cat or a toad to take with them. I figured the girls would take cats and the boys would take toads, but there were plenty of girls who wanted toads. (small plastic animals, I found them at a party supply store for 19 cents each) ........................................................................... Finally, they got to go to Ollivander's and choose their wands. We made the wands out of chop sticks which we rolled in glitter glue. The kids got to try two or three with my niece saying…. "No, No Definitely Not" the first couple of times. ........................................................................... After their trip down Diagon Alley, the students went to "Kings cross station" which was set up on the side of the house. There was a sign on the house saying "platform 9" and on the fence saying "platform 10". They each got to run through a sparkly purple curtain (from oriental trading) which we put between the house and the 6 foot fence and on the other side, it said "platform 9 ¾" and we had cardboard boxes, spray painted red, set up along the side of the house. Each of the kids stepped inside a box (which we had a parents standing by to write their names on) and we had attached a string loop on each side that they put on their shoulders to hold it up. It was a little awkward with their goody bags, but they managed. We had one of the parents call out "All Aboard for Hogsmead Station" and we walked the kids through the back and around the other side of the house and back into the front yard. Meanwhile, the front yard, had been rearranged to form the "Great Hall" of Hogwarts. The kids left their train car and their goody bags and went to the front of the great hall. ........................................................................... At the sorting ceremony, each child got to draw a card out of a hat and if it had a lion, they were in Gryffindor and if it had a snake, they were in Slytherin. They went to sit down at the tables, which had been arranged in two rows. Then we served cake and ice cream and had my son open his presents (which we called "Transfiguring the boxes to gifts") ........................................................................... Next, we had the Slytherin's go with Professor Snape (my tall, skinny brother) to potions class. The Gryffindor's went with me, Hagrid was ill, so I had to take over, for "Care of Magical Creatures. (after each class had done one class, the students traded and did the other class.) ........................................................................... POTIONS - For potions class, I had the little cauldrons from Halloween (about ½ cup size) The kids got to measure out a powder (sugar free kool-aid powder) using an old balance that was my dad's. when they got it to measure, they put it into their cauldron and then added water. Then they stirred their concoctions with silly straws, and…the ultimate test…they had to drink their potion. If it turned them into a toad, then they hadn't measured correctly ............................................................................ CREATURES - For Care of Magical Creature class, we got Amazing Animal Capsules (from oriental trading). We told the students that they were magical animal eggs. We had a camping coffee pot (battery operated) and we put water into it so that it was hot by the time that class started. We poured about ½ of the pot into a large bowl and each student put his "Egg" into the hot water. With much pomp and circumstance, I stirred the eggs around as the capsule melted and the sponge animals appeared. Then I used the spoon to remove the animals to the grass (they were hot). And each child got to step on his animal to press the water out of them. They cooled down by the time the potions class was done and they got to keep their animals. We ended up having a bunch of extras, so I let each child take a few more home to do later.) ........................................................................... After the classes, we had the kids put their sponge animals into their goody bags and we went to the Quidditch pitch. (The back yard) We had each house line up in straight lines. Then we gave the first in line a broomstick and a ball (the Quaffle). The first person had to use the broomstick to get the ball over the line on the other side of the lawn and back and hand the broom to the next in line and continue until the very last person in line. The last person is the "seeker" and he had to ride the broomstick to the other side of the lawn, over the line, and then find the snitch and then ride the broomstick back. (There were two snitches, one for each team). Then all of the guests on the winning team were given gold super balls. The second place team got silver super balls. ........................................................................... For the thank you, I made up report cards for each child (they all got straight A's of course). All through the party we snapped tons of pictures, so I included a picture of the child from the party with each thank you card. My son thought this was the best party ever!
