Jenna’s Happy Harry Potter Party

Jenna turned 9 on Saturday. Nine! And, in our house, you can’t rightly turn 9 without some kind of a celebration! She decided she wanted to have a Harry Potter Party, so we made invitations that looked like this.

When it was party time, the guests arrived at platform 9 3/4 and came inside to be sorted by the sorting hat. I had made a sorting hat out of a paper bag, and then painted it black. To make the sorting hat speak, I taped my cell phone inside the hat so that the sorter (Ryan) could put everyone in the right house. Actually, we only had two houses, Ravenclaw and Huffelpuff. Because Nobody wants to be in Slytherin, and everybody wants to be in Gryffindor, so those two were eliminated, leaving only the neutral houses. When they were put in a house, they received a badge on a string. But really, we didn’t even divide into houses, so it didn’t matter which house they were in, it was just a fun thing to do.

And each child got to pick their own wand.

Potions
Next, we had our potions class. I had some really cool old jars that I filled with all kinds of different juices and sodas, and the kids could choose their potions. They could mix colors if they wanted, and try as many different mixtures as they wanted.

For lunch, we had
Squid dogs, owl droppings, small orbs (grapes), and wizard buscuits (rolls). At the last minute, however, I found out that one of Jenna’s friends has a severe peanut allergy and can’t be around ANYTHING with peanuts, so we nixed the muddy buddies and went with plain Lays chips instead. The kids seemed to enjoy the weird food, although those squid dogs were grossing me out.

After they ate, it was time for some wizard games.

We played “Hoo’s Hedwig”, which is kind of like Marco Polo without the pool, only the person in the middle (Harry) has to find Hedwig the owl, who is saying Hoo. The other kids can say any other animal noises they want.

Then we played a game with silly arms, where one person stands behind another and does the arm movements, while the person in the front answers a question describing some action.

Next, we did some creating and the kids got to “Make their own dragon”. I got out whatever craft supplies I could find, like googly eyes, pipe cleaners, foam, popsicle sticks, glue, scissors, etc, and they all just tried to make a dragon.

None of their “dragons” were all that great, but it was a nice time filler, and not TOO messy.

Then, while Jenna opened up her presents, I was able to clean off the table and get ready for cake.

I made this cake all by myself, which is rare. Usually I rely on the talents of those, well…more talented in the art of decorating cakes than myself. But this time I decided to just be brave and do the cake myself. And if it didn’t work, I could always just go and buy a cake from the grocery store and stick the Harry Potter figures on it. I borrowed the book cake pan from a friend, and I was pleased with how it came out. I was going to put the little figures around the cake, but they kept falling over, so we went without.

It was a fun party, and most importantly, the birthday girl thoroughly enjoyed it!