In case you missed it, here’s the post where I talk about decorations and food.
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Okay, so the house was all Harry Potter-ified, the cupcakes were made, and still we needed to DO stuff at the actual party. It never ends–the party planning! But Milo is pretty great, so I didn’t mind. Too much.
Things started off with a bang when Hagrid showed up. It pays to have friends with Hagrid costumes when you’re having a Harry Potter party. Here are the kids spotting him out the front door:
And then everyone headed over to Ollivander’s/our dining room so their wands could pick them (I talked about how I made the wands last week). Dave was Ollivander and handed the kids a wand to try waving around. Ari was in charge of sound effects; he hit a button to make it sound like glass breaking or someone screaming or a cat yowling or whatever, and then Dave would says, “oh, no–not THAT one!” and have the kid try another. When they got to the “right” wand, Ari played the Harry Potter theme music. This was all highly amusing. I probably should have done some video. Oh well:
Once everyone had a wand, it was scavenger hunt time. In keeping with the “Arrival Day at Hogwarts” theme, the idea was that Neville had lost his toad, Trevor, on the train, and everyone had to help find him. I divided the kids into two groups and set them up with their first terrible rhyming clues:
Milo ranked this as his favorite party activity (well, right up there with eating cupcakes). The last clue led to enough stress ball frogs (from Oriental Trading Company; they didn’t have any toads) for everyone (or maybe try these or these):
And the final organized activity was sorting the kids into houses, right before we turned them loose on the ice cream. I thought about trying to DIY a Sorting Hat 
We taped a baby monitor up in there (some of the reviews say there’s a pocket in the hat for a monitor. Umm….I didn’t see one. I should probably go check again. Anyway, we just used masking tape), and Dave hid in the other room and made the hat talk and tell the kids which house they were in.
This got a little tiresome, honestly, maybe because everyone was waiting for cupcakes. I think it would have been better if we’d done it earlier and used it as a way of sorting kids into teams for the scavenger hunt maybe. (Milo and Gus quizzed everyone when they arrived about what house they wanted to be in, and put them wherever they said).
Oh! The spellbooks sitting up there by the Sorting Hat were the last of the party favors (so everyone took home a wand, a toad, and a spellbook). I used the printable spells from Heidi’s So-called Life (she has a few different chapters in hers with other activities, but I only printed the spell part. Oh, also….they print out 4 pages per sheet, but I could only use 2 of them because I needed a margin for the staples. You’ll see what I mean if you go to print. She glued her pages into notebooks, so she didn’t need a margin). Then I made my own covers. The covers were supposed to some fancy looking but normal thickness paper I had, but I ran out (printing the actual spells on it) and had to use card stock. Which made the whole thing to thick for my crappy stapler to make it through. So, in the end, I stapled the spell part together and then glued THAT booklet into the card stock covers. Which probably made them look nicer than they would have with staples though the whole thing anyway.
And that’s it! Phew! Party planning is not so much my favorite thing in the whole world, but I think Milo really enjoyed it, so it was worth it in the end (I can say now that it’s all over). Thanks to everyone who came out to share the day with Milo!
Maybe you would like to pin this?
Check out some of our other parties:
August’s Doctor Who Movie Night Party
Abe’s Lincoln 1st Birthday Party
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What a fabulous party. I love all the activities you did. That scavenger hunt was such a great idea. I want to come to your next one 🙂
I’ll make sure to send you an invite 🙂
Hi – did I miss it or did you post the link to the scavenger hunt questions? I would like to do this with my ESL students here in Colombia 0:) Let me know or pelase share it!
oh, sorry–I thought I had replied, but it didn’t go through! I didn’t save the list of clues, unfortunately. But they were pretty specific to our house anyway, so I’m not sure if they’d be much use to anyone else even if I had!
i wish i could have come! you thought of everything- what a dream party!
How adorable! I love it all.
How fun! My boys would love this! xoxo
What a cool party! I wish my mom had gone all out like that. 🙂 But it would have had to have been a Little House on the Prairie party.
Wow! These games are so genius! I mean a scavenger hunt with rhyming clues. Love it!
This is so good. You always make sure your kids have the best time and the coolest of experiences. I would have this party for myself!!
The games are AWESOME. Looks like the kids had a blast. (I would have loved to come to this party.)
Also-loving the spell books. You thought of everything.
Yeah I agree with Amber: “GENIUS” and I feel terrible reading this after my son had his birthday yesterday but there was nothing to blog about in our house. But he had a good time
That’s what counts! Ari never wants actual parties anymore; I was kind of surprised that Milo wanted an all out one like this….
I don’t know really why, but it makes me so happy that the kids are still enjoying the Harry Potter stories. The first ook came out, when I was 12 (I think) and the books and then also the films were such a big part of my childhood! I remember how I went into the book store and there were next one in the series, still on the pallet because putting them on the shelves would have been useless… They sold probably hundreds on just one day.
Interestingly I never had a Harry Potter party… But maybe I was alreday too old when the real boom started.
I think, the next I’m at my parents I have to take the books with me and read them all once again!
I think my oldest had already started reading the books when the last one came out (or at least we’d starting reading them TO him), and then of the course the movies kept coming, so the older ones at least were pretty immersed in the whole thing. You should definitely do a re-read! I’m looking forward to reading them again with the baby in a few years 🙂
What an awesome party! Looks like they all had a lot of fun.
Do you remember where you bought the frogs? I can’t seem to find them anywhere.
They’re from Oriental Trading Company: http://www.orientaltrading.com/frog-stress-toys-a2-13654145.fltr?Ntt=frogs HTH!
I have been doing a ton of research on Harry Potter parties because I am having one next week for my daughter. You did such an awesome job with your party. Your scavenger hunt is genius!! Any chance you still have those clues and could pass it along? I know it was a while ago so if not no worries. I absolutely love the Ollivander idea too with the sound effects. Can’t wait to do that! I was trying to think of way for the wands to pick the wizard. Really good! I appreciate you posting because it is so nice to not have to reinvent the wheel. Thanks again!
Oh no! I thought I had already responded to this! Sadly, I don’t have any record of the clues (except the ones you can read in the picture)….a lot of them were very specific to our house anyway, though–like one clue took you to our planters on our front porch–stuff like that. Good luck with your party, and thanks so much for the comment!
Love this! I’m trying to make a scavenger hunt for my daughter’s party tonight!! I love your clues. I think a lot of them will work in our house, but I honestly don’t know the answers to some of the clues (I’m not up on my HP trivia!). Can you tell me the answers (where you hid the next clue) for each of the clues visible in the picture?? Thanks so much!!
oh–that’s going to be a challenge! let me see if I can remember: from the top, the first one was his sock drawer, then in a planter we have on our front porch with a raven painted on it, then the space under the stairs, the Weird Sisters one is inside the piano bench, then I think the moaning myrtle one was taped to the back of the toilet, microwave, our backyard firepit, bathtub. phew! I did it! HTH–have a great party 🙂
Thanks so much!! I figured out most of them, except the piano bench and bathtub. Thanks for the great ideas! The girls at the party loved it!!
yay–so glad to hear it!
Thank you for all the great ideas!!! I love the treasure hunt, I have been searching for good ideas. I only wish I could read all your clues.
I’ve been asked for those so many times; I wish I’d saved them! But they were pretty specific to our house anyway, so I’m not sure how much help they’d be to other people
I know it’s been a while but I love the idea of using sound effects for the wand choosing. What device did you use for the sound effects?
If I remember right we just downloaded a sound effects app for my phone–nothing fancy!