Harry Potter Wizardry classes

For Aidan's Harry Potter party we decided that we would rotate the 4 houses of kids through 4 classes. The 4 classes we devised for this party were Potions class, Care of Magical Creatures class, Transfiguration class, and a field trip to Ollivanders wand shop with Hagrid.

I taught the Potions class where the kids made “Felix Felicis” (liquid luck) potion bottle necklaces. I ordered bottle necklaces from Etsy.com a couple months before the party and had Mike create the bottle labels which he printed out on adhesive gold foil. Next I won an AMAZING deal for chemistry shot glasses off of ebay.com which I used to hold the natural cane syrup for the potion’s recipe. I had the kids use disposable eye droppers to fill their bottles with natural cane syrup (Middlemist Camellia honey), then I had the kids use disposable tweezers to put a pinch of Wilton Edible Gold Star Glitter (light powder) into their bottles. I borrowed motar and pestles from nearby relatives and had the kids crush pearls into powder to sprinkle into their bottles (Wilton candy pearls). With all the ingredients to the potion added to the bottle, I finally had the kids cork the tops of their necklace bottles tightly and then give the bottle a good shake. Poof! “Felix Felicis” J

My friend Monica taught the Care of Magical Creatures class where we had the kids hatch dragon eggs.

For this class I was able to get a good deal from a vendor on Etsy.com who was willing to make me bath fizzy eggs with little toy dragons inside, https://www.etsy.com/shop/TwoSistersSpa

I simply had to find little toy dragons that were small enough. Luckily I stumbled across a website that sold dragon paratrooper party favors. I was able to snag the last 24 dragons (they were apparently discontinued and those were the last 24 in stock!) and had them shipped to the vendor. She simply cut the parachutes off the little dragons and enclosed them within tiny plastic capsules. Then she molded the bath fizz around the capsules in the shape of an egg.

To add more pizzaz to this class than just simply dropping a dragon bath fizz egg into the cauldron. I bought some multi colored glitter (powdered mermaid scales) and had the kids add a pinch of the glitter to the warm water in their cauldrons first before dropping in their dragon eggs.

When the kids dropped their dragon eggs into the water of their cauldrons the effect was more awesome than I thought it would be. The eggs bubbled and fizzed in the cauldrons dissolving to leave behind the capsule with the tiny plastic baby dragon inside. The kids got to check their class booklet to see what kind of dragon they had hatched.

  For the Transfiguration class I had my brother use “Insta-snow”. Since my brother has been “pulling one over me” since we were little, I knew he would be perfect for creating an illusion to the kids that they were creating snow from their wands. He and his girlfriend did a great job leading this class and I also bought containers to package up the snow so that the kids could bring home to play with (I didn’t want all that snow staying at my house).

The creation of Ollivander’s wand shop was all Mike. As much as we both wanted to create an effect from the movie with a gold light shining along with gust of air blowing at the kids when they were given the right wand, it was pretty evident that we were on a budget and that we were running out of time because of how neurotic we were both being towards every detail of this party. So Mike came up with the idea to use our TV to play wand casting effects that he could control from the laptop when the kids were given the right wand. It was truly brilliant! When the kids got a wrong wand, he set up his shop so that either a bell would go off (tied with invisible string), or books would fall out (painted cereal boxes with legos inside tied with invisible string), or that candles would blow out (remote controled LED candles).