Hosting a Harry Potter Party

Hosting a Harry Potter party, how to transform your room into a Harry Potter world

Hi readers! There are likely two groups of people here reading this blog post:  people hosting a Harry Potter themed party and teachers who regularly check out my blog.

This is going to be a blog post all about a lovely Harry Potter themed night I hosted at my house. BUT I wanted to put a spin on my blog post to include incorporation for how teachers can also include some of these things in their classrooms! So, as you’re scrolling, keep an eye out for teacher tips for how you can use this in your classroom. If you’re just looking for ideas for hosting a Harry Potter party, enjoy! There are blog links and Etsy links to a few of the items in this blog post. There are also affiliate links to Amazon products that I used to create some of the crafts.

Harry Potter Decor

Let’s begin by discussing how to transform your house/classroom into a Harry Potter world. Below, you will find how I set my house up for our HP night.

Harry Potter themed party ideas for Harry Potter food, Harry Potter snacks, and Harry Potter party decor.
Harry Potter themed party ideas for Harry Potter food, Harry Potter snacks, and Harry Potter party decor.

Hogwarts Acceptance Letters

My book club friend Jen created a stack of envelopes for me because she has a wax seal kit. So, she printed off Harry Potter’s address on the front of envelopes and put a red Hogwarts wax seal on the back. Then, I used white twine and masking tape to create the illusion of the acceptance letters to Hogwarts flying out of my fireplace.

Teacher Tip: If you’re setting your classroom up for a year-long Harry Potter theme, the letters in the fireplace would be a great year-long staple to have in the classroom. However, if you’re just hosting a Harry Potter week or party, you could turn this into an activity. There are some fun ideas for the letters in the fireplace.

One would be for students to have to open the letters and find different parts of speech or find different types of sentences within the letter. You could definitely turn the acceptance letters into a fun game! Another idea would be practicing how to make addresses or write their own letters to Harry Potter, pretending to be Dumbledore.

Harry Potter themed party ideas for Harry Potter food, Harry Potter snacks, and Harry Potter party decor.

Floating Candles from the Great Hall

There are three reasons I chose to hang my floating candles from my light fixtures. One is because I didn’t really want masking tape noticeably stuck to my ceiling. Another is because I was running out of time and didn’t want to have to get my big ladder out of the garage. And third is because I just painted my ceilings last year and didn’t want to risk peeling any tape of. BUT I will say that hanging candles from all my light fixtures still created a feeling of being in the Hogwarts Great Hall.

I bought a 12-pack of these candles from Amazon. Here is that link to flickering candles. They each need two AA batteries for each candle, so grab those, too. There’s a 24-pack on Amazon, battery link here.

Teacher Tip: One of the reasons that I hung my floating candles from all my light fixtures is because I didn’t really want them hanging from my ceiling. In a classroom, however, if you have drop ceilings in your classroom like most schools do, you can push up the tiles and tie the string around the metal grid pieces! That would totally transform your classroom!

Hogwarts banner idea for Harry Potter themed party.
Hogwarts decor ideas for Harry Potter themed party.

Hogwarts Necessities

A coat of arms, a guide to wand spells, and a stack of Hogwarts books. All things you’d see at Hogwarts. The wand spell poster is a PDF I printed from a blog called Clean Eating with Kids. I had several play wands out (Target has costume wands now for $5.99) and I also had my real wand from Orlando’s theme park. It was fun to look at the ways that you’re supposed to cast each spell after reading about them in the books. The book jackets are free PDFs from Paper Trail Designs that I printed off. Then, I just checked out a huge stack of thick library books and taped them up. It was such a simple task that really helped to transform the room.

I got the Hogwarts banner off of Amazon. Here is the link to the banner.

Teacher Tip: First, the banner and the stacks of books throughout your classroom would be a great way to decorate and transform your classroom. Then, you can turn the wand spell poster (from Clean Eating with Kids) into a fun activity or game. This could be for a themed party or week event you’re having in your classroom. You can give the students time to play and practice different spells. You could also give them a writing activity associated with it. After giving them time to practice, they could write a how-to or informative piece about wand spells. There are many ways to incorporate an educational activity into this wand game!

Harry Potter themed party ideas for Harry Potter food, Harry Potter snacks, and Harry Potter party decor.
Harry Potter themed party ideas for Harry Potter food, Harry Potter snacks, and Harry Potter party decor.

Sorting Hat and Trivia Game

My breakfast table hosted two interactive things:  the talking sorting hat and a Trivial Pursuit set of cards just for Harry Potter. This was one of the areas of my party that people hung around. The Sorting Hat was a lot of fun, however, most of the people at my party were already die-hard Harry Potter fans (who quite obviously know their Hogwarts house already), so when the Sorting Hat gave them an incorrect label, it wasn’t well-accepted, haha!

The Talking Sorting Hat is something I also bought off Amazon. Here’s the link to the sorting hat. The Trivial Pursuit is also something you can get off of Amazon, too. Trivial Pursuit link here.

Teacher Tip: The talking Sorting Hat is amazing! If you’re going to host a classroom transformation, this would be a fun game/activity to play with the students. However, if you’re going to decorate your classroom with Harry Potter for the entire year, the Sorting Hat would be a great way to start your school year and create houses! As for the trivia… if you have an older set of students, the Trivial Pursuit would be a great game to have in the classroom for inside recess, or simply as an early finisher activity. However, if you have a younger set of students, that may be too difficult.

Harry Potter themed party ideas for Harry Potter food, Harry Potter snacks, and Harry Potter party decor.

Don’t Forget Myrtle!

I googled an image of Moaning Myrtle to print off for my bathroom. While looking on Pinterest, I saw tons of people put her on the actual toilet lid to surprise people when they opened the lid. However, I wasn’t a big fan of having to remove that after it had been so close to the toilet, haha. So I just taped her to the mirror by the sink.

Teacher Tip: For the younger students, I wouldn’t use a Moaning Myrtle cut-out, simply because of them being easily startled or spooked. However, if you have older readers who would appreciate the humor, you can have her lurking near the water fountain/class sink/bathroom.

Harry Potter Food

Harry Potter themed snack foods for the classroom.

The options for Harry Potter themed food was too much fun to search and plan for. I looked all over Pinterest and Google for themed food and ideas. There were three main areas in my kitchen (the 4-houses corner, Honeydukes, and the drink corner). Read below for a how-to on setting up those areas.

Harry Potter themed party ideas for Harry Potter food, Harry Potter snacks, and Harry Potter party decor.

Honeydukes Corner

The Honeydukes corner was a crowd favorite. Honeydukes is the candy shop in Hogsmeade, so  this is where I got to load up all the sweet treats. I bought pots and bowls to put the candy in, but made sure all of my candy was something that could be found either in Honeydukes, or was closely themed to the books. The six things I chose were dragons eggs (M&Ms), Bertie Botts beans, Sorting Hats (Hershey’s kisses), Unicorn Poop (marshmallows), Fizzing Whizzbees (candy corn), and Magic Wands (Twizzlers).

For the sign above the area, I just googled Honeydukes and copy/pasted one of the images into PowerPoint so that I could blow it up to a larger size when printing. The food labels are something I also made on PowerPoint. I googled Honeydukes logos again to get the pink/green striped background, then used the HarryP font from Dafont.com to type out the labels.

I bought the 6 terra cotta pots off of Amazon. They came in a pack of 6, which was simple enough. I did have to wipe them out so that I could put snacks down in there! Here is a link to the terra cotta pots. The trademarked Honeydukes bowl is from Hot Topic in my local mall.

Teacher Tip: If you’re hosting a Harry Potter classroom party, this would be an amazing buffet-style candy bar. If you have any peanut allergies, though, I would replace the dragon eggs with another round of colorful candy, such as Skittles! I believe everything else is nut-free. If you give the students a plate and let them walk down the buffet-style candy table, this could be a great way to serve the snack at your Harry Potter classroom party.

Harry Potter candy ideas.
Harry Potter "HoneyDukes" themed candy ideas.

Here’s a close-up of the candy within the pots! I bought all the candy at my local grocery store, and I got the Bertie Botts Beans at a movie-themed store in the mall.

Harry Potter themed party ideas for Harry Potter food, Harry Potter snacks, and Harry Potter party decor.
Harry Potter themed party ideas for Harry Potter food, Harry Potter snacks, and Harry Potter party decor.

‘The 4 Houses’ Themed Snacks & Nimbus 2000 Broomsticks

If you’re hosting a Harry Potter party, making snacks for each house is a must. After searching Pinterest for cute themed snacks, I had a solid idea of wanting to make Huffle’puffs’ and Raven’claws’. I had a harder time making a “punny” snack for Gryffindor and Slytherin, but Pinterest search came through. I made Gryffindor grapes, Slytherin snakes which were just sour gummy ropes or sour gummy worms, Ravenclaw was Bugles because kiddos can make witch claws with them (who didn’t do that as a child??), and Hufflepuff snack was cheese puffs. Then, I made Nimbus 2000s, which were Reese Cups and pretzels sticks. I also saw people made the Nimbus 2000 broomsticks out of pretzel rods and pieces of string cheese.

Teacher Tip: The 4 houses themed snacks is a go-to for your classroom themed party or class transformation snack time. They’re all peanut-free, too. The Nimbus 2000s have peanut butter, though, so those wouldn’t work for a nut-free classroom.

Harry Potter themed party ideas for Harry Potter food, Harry Potter snacks, and Harry Potter party decor.
Harry Potter themed party ideas for Harry Potter food, Harry Potter snacks, and Harry Potter party decor.

Professor Sprout’s Vegetable Garden

The vegetable garden was all over Pinterest, so I knew right away that’s something I had to bring to my party. I also provided gilly water for my guests, which were just bottles of water with labels taped to them. I scoured the Internet for free gilly water labels, but couldn’t find any printables for those, so this is something I bought off of Etsy. Here’s the link to the Etsy store I bought it from if you’re looking for gilly water labels.

Harry Potter Pumpkin juice ideas.
Harry Potter butter beer idea for classroom party.

Non-Alcoholic Beverages

Both pumpkin juice and butter beer are non-alcoholic. So they’d be safe for a kids party or for a classroom transformation. They would take a bit of prep, though. Pumpkin juice is a concoction of apple cider, pumpkin puree, and several spices/sugar. It’s an interesting taste for sure. Unfortunately, it tastes nothing like the pumpkin juice that is sold in Orlando at the theme parks. It was still fun to create and try out. I got my pumpkin juice recipe from Fav Family Recipes. The label is something I printed off of a blog called Over the Big Moon. Here is a link to the pumpkin juice label. My friend made all the butter beer in a blender. She used vanilla ice cream, cream soda, whipped cream, and caramel drizzle.

Teacher Tip: Since both pumpkin juice and butter beer are non-alcoholic, they’re both perfectly fine to use in the classroom. However, you may want to switch to just pumpkin juice unless you give parents a heads-up on butter beer. (You wouldn’t want your students going home telling their parents they drank beer at school, haha!) Also, for the butter beer, you’ll need to bring your blender into school that day.

Harry Potter themed party ideas for Harry Potter food, Harry Potter snacks, and Harry Potter party decor.
Harry Potter themed party ideas for Harry Potter food, Harry Potter snacks, and Harry Potter party decor.

Hosting a Harry Potter Party with Adult Beverages

These are definitely not-suitable-for-school. If you’re hosting a Harry Potter party, themed drinks are a must. This was my drink corner. I got the mimosa sign from Popcorner Reviews. Here is the link to that printable. The Elf-made Wine label is the same place I got the pumpkin juice label above. Here’s the link to the elf-made wine labels. The goblet hand glasses are from the Dollar Tree!

Good luck hosting your own Harry Potter party!

If you're hosting a Harry Potter themed party, this blog posts have all the ideas you need for Harry Potter food, Harry Potter snacks, and Harry Potter party decor.
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