Harry Potter Party Part One

Miss M recently turned 8 and is currently Harry Potter mad (bordering on obsessive but then that’s her character and another conversation!)  so we threw her a Harry Potter themed party.  I put loads of time and energy into this party and it was so fantastic that I have to share it with you.  We had actually had to rearrange the party due to illness so it was month late.   Be warned, this might take a while….

The first thing you need for any party is the invitation.  This sets the tone of the party as well as giving the necessary information and this invite most defiantly set the tone.  It was constructed like a letter from Hogwarts itself!

November 2010

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore (Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf Warlock,,

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. Of Wizards)

Dear Miss
We are pleased to announce that you have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for pre-Christmas lessons. Classes will be held on Saturday 18th December 2010 from 3pm to 5.30pm and will be hosted by Hogwarts’ newly appointed Headgirl, Miss M. There will be a final examination at the end of the day.
Please take the Hogwarts Express train to Hogwarts Academy currently disguised as the Muggle home at home address. There you will find the magical door visible only to Hogwarts students’ friends and families. The password is flibbertigibbet. The surrounding area is well-protected by Memory Charms, so it will be safe to practice magic, however please come dressed in Muggle attire so as not to attract suspicion from passing Muggles.
You will be sorted into your House upon arrival and receive your House school robes and wands. Parents are reminded that first years are not allowed their own broomsticks.
We are looking forward to your arrival at Hogwarts. Please respond by owl to email address or Muggle telephone system with a yes or no response.
Sincerely

Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

I picked up the text from a number of places and all the resources are at the bottom of the second post.  If I stole your ideas in what I’ve done, I thank you from the bottom of my heart!

The invites were printed on thick parchment paper and the envelopes had the Hogwarts crest on them instead of a stamp.  There was great excitement in school when she handed them out and lots of squealing!    We actually asked all the kids to come in their school uniform which was a bit weird for a party on a Saturday but it added to the whole Hogwarts experience. 

When the kids arrived the first thing we made them do was to try Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans, or rather Jelly Belly Bean Boozled Beans. 

In case you can’t read the text, there are identical beans in the box, one good, one bad!  The bad ones are Centipede, Toothpaste, Canned Dog Food (I managed to avoid that one!), Vomit (I didn’t manage to avoid! Blurgh!) Mouldy Cheese, Rotten Egg, Baby Wipes & Booger!  There were 7 girls at this party and they were so brave trying these flavours, and let me tell you, they were disgusting!  There was loads of screaming, squealing and disgusted faces, it was great!  To be kind I offered them some Smarties in between to take the taste away, one girl in particular seemed to get all the bad one and no good ones!!

Can you tell the difference?

Next stage was to sort the into houses.  Matt had made a Sorting Hat by covering a Halloween witches hat with brown paper. 

The Hat had a hidden pocket into which we hid a phone which was set on loudspeaker, I lowered the hat onto their head while Matt was upstairs in the bedroom and read out a little poem to sort the kids into either Ravenclaw or Gryffindor.  The kids loved it, they couldn’t work out how that happened and Miss M still doesn’t know!  Once they knew which house they were in they were given their robes with the House badge on.  These were large black adult t-shirts which had been cut down the middle and I’d put on the house badge using iron-on transfer paper which you might remember I had little frenzy of activity recently!

Next on the list was wands.  For this we went to our local Chinese supermarket and found long wooden chopsticks which Matt then painted and decorated. 

Each wand was unique and had a label stating what wood it was made from (Holly, Elder, Willow etc) and its core (Phoenix Feather, Peacock Feather, Unicorn Tail etc). 

In the wizarding world there is a concept that the wand choses the wizard so we covered them with a fancy sheet and the kids had to move their hand over the label and select the one which ‘called’ to them.  I wish we’d managed to come up with some better interactive kind of way of doing this like flashing lights or sounds but it worked ok in the end. 

Here they all are with their robes and wands, doesn’t their school uniform make it perfect?

Scary!

More in the next post……………..

I shall be linking up with all these lovely link parties this week