This is the PartyOz guide to the perfect Harry Potter Children’s Theme Party with all the ettiquette, ideas, costumes and magical party games.

Leave your Muggle-life behind and step into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with a Harry Potter theme party! Here’s some advice and tips for holding a party that your guests will surely love.

Invitation Suggestion

Roll up your invitation into a scroll, tied with a small ribbon or string.

“All wizards and witches (and some specially selected muggles) are hereby invited to (birthday child)’s Harry Potter birthday party!

Put on your fanciest magical clothing, jump on your broomstick and head to King’s Cross Train Station, London, platform 9 ¾. Trains departing from Platform 9 ¾ are expected to arrive at (time) on (date).

Send your RSVP via owl or chimney: (phone number).

Guaranteed to be more magical than a Quidditch Final!”

Guest Arrival & Decorations

Upon arrival at the party, each witch and wizard should receive special tools they’ll need for the party. Give them a small bag of toys: a wand, a magical flashing ring, toy spider, snake, rat (which can help decorate the house as well), glow stick, stickers, etc. Anything you think they might like. Visit your local magic or toy shop for inspiration.

Visit a craft store and buy wand-like sticks (like dry willow branches) and decorate them prior to the day or hold a wand-making class at the party, supplying the appropriate craft (craft-glue, ribbon, glitter and some colour stones like opals, quarts, etc, for the ends). The kids can take theirs home as a memento.

Fill the shelves with bottles filled with different coloured water to appear like potions with strange labels, and leave stuffed animals (frogs, owls, rats, etc) around the house.

Hogwarts is a huge rambling castle full of dark corners, so draw the blinds and use lamps if available. Covering the lights with coloured cellophane (red, blue, purple or green) creates a mystical atmosphere. Place glow-in-the-dark stars, moons and lightning bolts in the darkest corners, or make some out of foil and place them around the house and near the coloured lights.

The entrance into your Harry Potter party is, of course, via King’s Cross Train Station, London, platform 9 ¾ (nine and three quarters) which is disguised as a brick wall. Hang a brown blanket striped with white/grey paint (to simulate brickwork) across the entrance to your home. The children will have to muster up their courage and trust they’ll be able to pass through it.

Make "snitches" by spray painting Styrofoam, rubber balls or ping pong balls gold, then glue feathers on each side. Hang them on the ceiling or place them on the table for the guests.

Here’s a list of places and settings from the books that you could use as inspiration for different areas of the home/party area.

No. 4, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, England (the Dursley residence)
Diagon Alley
The Forbidden Forest
Gringotts Bank
Hogwarts
Hogsmeade
The Quidditch Pitch
The Shreaking Shack
Dumbledore's Office
The Ministry of Magic

Create a mystical ambience by getting your hands on a Halloween or magic tape or cd.

Costume Suggestions

The trickiest part of obtaining the Hogwarts look is the long cloak. Purchasing one may be tricky, so why not try making your own. Buy some black fabric and click on this link for a pattern to design your own.

The remainder is somewhat easier, as the Hogwarts uniform is very similar to the standard high school uniform used in many schools (grey sweater, grey pants, black shoes). Try scouting through second-hand and opportunity shops. Alternatively, if it’s proving elusive, you could try a high school uniform store.

Some wizards or witches may forget their hats, so it would be a good idea to have some onside just in case.

Purchase some black cardboard and cut it into circles. Cut a triangle out of the circle, and then roll the cardboard up, overlapping the cut edges, then staple them together to form a hat. Create a few golden stars with sticky tape on the back, and slap them on. These stars can also be given out to further decorate costumes.

Here is a brief list of the Harry Potter characters:

Harry Potter
Ron Weasley
Hermione Granger
Draco Malfoy, with sidekicks Crabbe and Goyle
Professor Dumbledore
Oliver Wood
Fred & George Weasley
Ginny Weasley
Percy Weasley
The Dursleys (Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia and Dudley)
Dobby
Neville Longbottom
Professor McGonagall
Professor Snape
Sirius Black
Professor Lockhart

Food Suggestions

Magic Wand Pretzels

Melt some cooking chocolate down in a pot then dip large pretzel sticks into the mixture, topping their tips with sprinkles. Leave to dry on waxed paper.

Wizard Treats

Fill bowls, jars or goblets with Jelly beans, gummi worms, spiders and rats; anything you might find sneaking around a rambling castle.

Witch’s Broth

Fill cups or bowls with jelly, place frogs, rats, spiders and snakes in them and let them set overnight.

Potter’s Potion

Give your quests some pop rocks candies or whizz-fizz to sprinkle on their soft drinks and watch them bubble and fizz. Just a warning, this could get a tad messy.

Games & Activities

Basic Potion Class

Every witch and wizard should know the basics of Potion Making.

The liquids below are fine by themselves, though mixed with other liquids become a powerful concoction. Make a list of the potions you’ll be serving your wizards and witches, and the strange reactions the drinker suffers when two are mixed.

Share the creative process with the birthday girl/boy and see how many different combinations and their effects you can make up. On the day of the party, each guest gets to create their own potion and serve it to the person of their choosing. After the potion has been taken, you can then announce what its side-effects are, and the drinker has to act them out for a designated length of time.

Again, use some pop rocks candies or whizz-fizz to add a bubbling effect to the drinks.

To add a competitive element, assign each drink a point and have each house serve it up to another house. Which ever team gets the most points at the end wins.

Potion Ideas

Lemon & Raspberry = “Wavering Wobble Potion” turns the drinker into a quivering, trembling mess
Creamy Soda & Cola = “Dancing Doofus Potion” makes the drinker turn into a Disco-loving maniac
Raspberry & Creamy Soda = “Blathering Babble Potion” makes every word the drinker say start with the letter “R”
Lemon & Cola = “Fidgety Face Potion” makes the drinker pull funny faces

See what others you can think of. Potions are often useful for turning people into animals. When buying drinks, try and get as many colours as possible.

Dragon Egg Hunt!

Dragons are rightfully protective of their eggs and have hidden them around the house and/or garden.

Below is a recipe and instructions for making your very own dragon eggs. Hide them around the house/garden and send the kids out hunting.

An additional aspect to this game is to split the party into the Hogwarts Houses and colour or freckle the eggs with the relevant colour: Hufflepuff (black and yellow), Ravenclaw (blue and bronze in the books, medium blue and silver in the movies), Gryffindor (scarlet and gold) and Slytherin (dark green and silver). The teams then have to find their house’s eggs before the other houses.

Dragon Eggs (Measurements are for each egg, though can vary dependant on desired egg size):

1 cup flour
1 cup coffee grounds
1/2 cup salt
1 cup water
1/4 cup sand

Mix ingredients together. Shape into a ball and place thumb in center to form a hole. Place a treasure inside, cover up and shape into an egg. Let dry 4 to 5 days. The child then cracks it open to discover their treasure.

Some treasure ideas are toy dragons, or perhaps each house’s animal: Gryffindor (Lion), Ravenclaw (Raven), Slytherin (Serpent) and Hufflepuff (Badger), though these may be tricky to find. Alternatively, place a different rubber animals in each egg, so that each child gets their own pet (mice, cats, dogs, frogs, owls, crickets, birds, etc.)

For inspiration try using the following films and themes:

Harry Potter series
Witches
Lord of the Rings
The Golden Compass
Sabrina (tv series)
Merlin
The Chronicles of Narnia
Bedknobs and Broomsticks

Also See:

Halloween Party

www.kidsreads.com - Harry Potter Quizzes