Harry Potter Extravaganza

As a family we've been reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I knew we were on track to finish it this weekend, so to spice up an ordinary February Saturday, we started planning a Harry Potter party. With just minimal prep, and keeping things relatively simple (like, not going all out on decorations that no nine year old would ever appreciate), we managed to have an amazingly magical good time! One of the best parties we've thrown, actually, for anyone involved. In case anyone wants to follow suit and do the same (and to document it for myself for future adventure camps, birthday parties, etc) here's the details. DISCLAIMER: the only thing I came up with on my own for this party was the love potion, pumpkin muffins and wand play. The rest I owe to the brilliant minds in the blogosphere world who share their numerous talents!

Each kid was allowed to invite one friend (only Sophie wanted two, because she and her little friends are just getting in to the Harry Potter thing). Spencer invited Hayden Telford, Sophie had her little groupies Chacie and Emma, and Maggie had Eliza Hibbard. Six or seven kids was ideal for this kind of a party as it kept things intimate but still fun. Spencer was six and Maggie's eleven, and that age range was perfect. Everyone enjoyed everything we did.

As each kid arrived (at about 2:00 PM) we took them to the computer where online sorting hat games abound. Once they knew their "houses," we took them wand shopping = everyone got a chop stick that we decorated with glue gun details and then painted. This was probably the funnest thing we did - I got the chop sticks at a Chinese restaurant, then molded the hot glue as it dried to make the handles, scallopy details, and crystal balls at the base of the wands. Now that we've done a few we're better at wand making, but the initial prototypes still turned out okay. Of course, Gary's wand was the coolest. It always is - he's so creative. And crafty!

 

Some of the early wands, above. Gary's, below. You can work with the glue with the tip of the gun until you get the results that you want.

While the wands finished drying, we had Potions class. The first experiment was a love potion: acting as Professor Melinda McGonagall, I put about 1/2 cup unicorn tears (vinegar) in a vase, some dragon blood (red food coloring), and had the kids take turns one at a time adding a teaspoon of powdered skeleton bones (baking soda). If the potion fizzed, that person had a special little crush... and it always fizzed! The kids loved it. Keep adding vinegar if it stops fizzing with each addition.

The second potion was sloth slime. For seven kids, I used 1 cup bug juice (water) and one cup flesh eating slug slime (white glue).  You add the water to the glue, add a bit of acrylic or craft paint for coloring, and stir. In a separate cup I had one cup warm water. To this I had the "students" add 1 teaspoon Borax powder. Stir until it is mostly dissolved. Then pour the warm water/borax mix into the glue/water mix (but don't pour in the remaining undissolved Borax crystals left in the bottom of the cup.) This magically creates slime almost instantly - it is so cool! Stir until mixed well, then pour/squeeze out the remaining water drizzles. Give each student a handful, along with a baggie with their name on it to store it. Be careful that they wash their hands afterwards though, because Borax is poisonous if consumed.

After Potions class, we colored Hogwarts crests and did HP crossword puzzles, found here:

http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/hogwarts_crest_colouring_page.htm

Then it was time for afternoon tea, consisting of pumpkin pasties (pumpkin chocolate muffins), chocolate frogs, and fortune telling cups. This was really fun. The night before, I took seven plastic cups, dropped a drop or two of various food colorings, and let them dry overnight. You hide the drops with ice before letting the students pick their cup. As you pour water into the cup, it turns a color. Yellow meant fame and fortune; green meant good health and long life; red meant you live beloved and die happy; and blue meant you would be a leader of men and a doer of great deeds. The kids's faces totally lit up as their cup turned their fortunate color!

 

And then came the great Bertie Botts Ever Flavor Beans challenge. I got these from a party store (Zurchers). Each student picked two or three jelly beans from the bowl and took turns popping them into their mouths. It was a hoot to watch their expressions turn sweet or sour, according to the taste of their bean. The overall favorite was cotton candy - while vomit and boogers ranked dead last.

Chocolate frogs made from a borrowed mold - you can get one online.

Now that they were all sugared up, we decided to have our Defense Against the Dark Arts class. I reviewed the simplest spells (expelliarmus, stupify, ennervate, protego, and petrificus totallus) and they spent the next 40 minutes zapping each other with their wands. No body contact allowed, of course. (I love how Sophie made herself a "Head Girl" badge - she and her friends really got in to the spirit of the day!) Spence kept cracking us up b saying "stupid fly" instead of "stupefy" and "potato" instead of "protego" - maybe I wasn't speaking very clearly while giving the instructions.

Next was my rather lame attempt at Quidditch. I wasn't planning on doing quidditch, but they needed something else to do to kill time before dinner. So we wadded up pieces of paper into balls and they got to take turns throwing them into boxes. The next time I do this party, I'll take a big cardboard box, cut out three holes in it, paint the gold goals around the holes, and have a keeper to try to block the paper balls as kids try to throw them in. I just didn't get there this time.

This was a very leisurely party - we didn't rush anything and there was plenty of time between each activity to savor the results or rid themselves of the wiggles. Which was nice - I didn't have to boogie through each activity and have the next one ready to go. While they were playing with their wands and the balls, I finished up making up dinner: chicken (which had been slow roasting since 11 AM and therefore required no prep) and "chips" (fries), fresh veggies with dip, and butter beer (cream soda with a mixture of half and half, butter flavoring, and vanilla Torani syrup).

After dinner I did my only real "cutsie" touch to the day - the broomstick popcorn and pretzel bags. With a gold galleon (chocolate coin) hiding inside, of course. I confess, I loved these bags. They were so cute! You take a paper bag, fill it half way up with popcorn and the coin, then take another bag and cut it to shreds along the top and bottom, leaving a swath about 2/3 the way up the bag intact. That's where you tie the string to close it all up, after inserting the popcorn bag and the pretzel stick for the broomstick. Thank you Pinterest!

And then it was movie time (we covered up the scary scenes of the screaming book, the forbidden forest, and the mirror scene with voldemort coming out of the guys head, in case you were wondering). Before everyone went home afterwards, we gathered their wands, slime and coloring pages for them to take home, then gave them their final exam - a trivia sheet of questions from the book. I just made one up - if you want to use it for a party of your own, let me know and I can email it to you.

What a great day. Since I kept them busy, there was little - dare I say no? - whining or fighting. It was a good group of kids who were neither too immature or too "cool" to enjoy the activities - everyone loved it. And I kept it easy on myself by not rushing through things too fast or decorating things up when, as mentioned before, it wouldn't have been appreciated anyway. Until they're older, at least.

We must do this again sometime.

Now, what to read next? ... :-)