A Harry Potter Party

Me: Amri, what kind of theme do you want for your birthday party?
Amri: Harry Potter!
Me: (thinking--really???)

I was surprised when Amri told me that she wanted a Harry Potter themed birthday party--she's never read the books, and seen the first two movies just a couple of times. I'm so glad she picked it though--it turned out to be the funnest party I've ever planned! 

We started out by downloading a Harry Potter font and making acceptance letters to Hogwarts for their invitations.

For the party everyone first had to pass through Platform 9 & 3/4 to get inside. 

When they came inside, "students" were greeted by the 

sorting hat, picking a wand, and our "class schedule"

For our Potions Class, we ordered these tiny cauldrons on amazon, and mixed dish soap, food coloring, vinegar, and baking soda together to make some awesome creations. The kids LOVED it!

Xi's crazy eyes!

We next had dinner in the "Great Hall." We just had pizza, soda, and cupcakes. I learned a couple of years ago that Pizza Pie Cafe sells their unbaked pizza dough for a large pizza for $1.75, all rolled out and folded up--which is an amazing life saver when I don't have time to make it myself. The rest was easy, and the kids put together the two pepperoni pizzas while I finished setting up the decorations. I put food coloring at the bottom of their cups before putting in ice, and they loved seeing what color their drinks would be, and each color represented a different fortune.

I'm not sure why exactly she wanted "Happy Hogwarts Birthday" on her cake, but she's the birthday girl so we went with it.

We had wizarding hat cupcakes made with sugar cones rolled in chocolate. 

Amri and I had a lot of fun making those alone early in the morning the day before the party.

The kids ended up eating them like ice cream cones.

Next came "divination" where Amri had to figure out if her friends' gifts were something to play with, eat, or wear, and if she got it wrong she got a bump on her head. The next part of divination was playing Pin the Glasses on Harry Potter. We used the sorting hat as our eye covers :)

Next we had our "spells" class. Everyone got a balloon and used their wands to keep it up while saying, "Wingardium Leviosa." We gave prizes to the kids who could keep their balloons up the longest.

We moved outside for our Broomstick Racing. Two teams each had a broom and raced each other to the end of the driveway and back.

Last was our "Defense Against the Dark Arts" Class. We made a Dementor pinata out of brown paper bags, a stick and a witch's robe I've had forever in our costume box. Best. Pinata. Ever.

Tyson had a blast swinging it over the kids. And no, Amri did not swing the bat facing the other kids. This was pre-swinging bat stage. 

 Honestly, my favorite part was watching Tyson's face as he would swing the pinata just out of reach as the kids tried to whack it. They finally broke it down and got the candy bars inside.

All in all it was a smashing success.

I really hope another kids picks to have a Harry Potter Party in the future so I can do this again!!!