Your witch or wizard will be thrilled to run through Platform 9 and 3/4, get sorted by the Sorting Hat and even play their own game of quidditch!
Invitations: Send out Hogwarts acceptance letters to all of your party guests. Templates can be printed out or created from scratch. Use good stationary paper and make sure to sign the letter from Minerva McGonagall herself! You could also send out Marauder’s Maps as invitations with party details at different locations on the map. Check out the link to our Pinterest page below for creative ideas and printouts.
Sorting Hat: As each guest enters, have them get sorted into one of the four houses! Buy or make your own sorting hat and have an adult in a different room yell out the house the guest will be sorted into. Once they’ve been sorted into Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw, give each guest a tie and robe in his house’s representative colors.
Dragon Eggs: Hard boil eggs and use food coloring to create your own edible dragon eggs. If you crack the shells before coloring, it will leave colored cracked lines on the egg and will give each egg a unique look.
Herbology Vegetable Platter: Make a herbology class inspired vegetable platter! Use interesting looking vegetables, such as button mushrooms, bell peppers, broccoli and snap peas. Arrange on a platter and serve to guests.
Wands: Dip pretzel sticks into chocolate colored with food coloring, and serve them as wizard’s wands. You can also drizzle dark chocolate over the wands or dust them with edible glitter for fun effects.
Chocolate Frogs: If you don’t eat these quickly, they may just jump away from you! Melt chocolate in a double boiler and set aside gummy frogs. When the chocolate has completely melted, use a spoon to dip the gummy frogs into the chocolate. Put them in the fridge until the chocolate has completely hardened.
Cake: Make a Hogwarts themed cake by layering it with the Hogwarts logo or a scarf that represents the child’s favorite house. Top with a sorting hat, cauldron, broomstick or Harry’s famous lightning bolt scar.
Potions Class: Set party guests to work at making their own potions under the watchful eye of an adult dressed as Professor Snape. Have guests create their own Exploding Filibuster potions by pouring Erumpent Horn fluid (vinegar) into a container. Add your Graphorn horn (alka seltzer tab), shake the container, set it down and stand back! The chemical reaction will cause the mixture to fizz, foam and explode!
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Quidditch: Bring party guests outside for an exciting game of Quidditch. Hang hula-hoops from the front of a basketball rim to act as the goals. Use a small playground ball as the quaffle and two soft dodge balls as the bludgers. Divide guests into four teams based on the houses they were sorted into. Teams should have two chasers, two beaters and a seeker. Allow one child to play the role of the golden snitch, and have them run around the yard and try to avoid the seeker.
Decorations: Set up four picnic benches and hang house banners from the ceiling. Have guests sit at their designated house table. Create fun place cards by tying an owl-shaped balloon to each guest’s seat. On the string of the balloon, tie a letter from their parents onto it. Use plastic gold tableware and silverware, and consider making the see-through ceiling of the Great Hall.
Movies: Watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and give each guest a wand. Instruct guests to cast spells with Harry, Ron and Hermione as the movie plays.
Party favors: Give each guest their own bag full of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, acid pops, peppermint toads and sugar quills.
For more ideas, follow our Pinterest Board: pinterest.com/bosparentspaper/
Mabel Sterritt is an intern with Boston Parents Paper.
