Harry Potter Party Games
If you’re planning to have a kids Harry Potter-themed birthday party there are lots of ideas and products to help you make it a smash hit with everyone. While there are a ton of web sites to sell you pre-made items, I’m going to focus here on putting it together yourself, with little money and lots of creativity and recycling. That’s not to say you shouldn’t check out what’s available for purchase as you might decide one or two key pieces are well worth it to form a foundation to build around. But I think a large part of the fun is getting your kids involved and spending a week or two before-hand letting your imagination go wild and there’s nothing like the satisfaction of seeing everyone having a great time and knowing you did it yourself.I’ve made separate pages for food, decorations, costumes and board games as these are large topics in themselves. So on this homepage I’ll focus on games to play at the party.
Another thing you’ll need to decide in advance is whether you have enough guests to assign them Houses for the day, and then all games are played to win House points. If you don’t have enough to do this, could choose 2 Houses, or just have the kids play individually.
Outdoor Games
1. Broom Racing - “fly” to the finish line riding a broom. Can have guests bring their own, predecorated, or make it an earlier activity. Simply paint the handle and add models (eg. Nimbus 2000) and any other decorations.2. Owl Postal Service – round up some stuffed owls (dollar store might be a good place) and have the kids place them between their legs as they race to the “Great Hall” flapping their arms like wings.
3. Trevor’s Toad Hop – this is a good alternative to the above which saves you tracking down stuffed owls. Just have the kids race while hopping like a toad.
4. Quidditch – there are many Muggle variations on the web that you can Google, or just make up your own rules. Basically, have a Quaffle (any small ball), some hoops set up for goal posts (hula hoops can work), 2 soft balls for bludgers (Nerf balls, beach balls, or, if it’s a hot day, wet sponges!). One variation is to play on brooms – use the ones from the Broom Racing above.
5. Capture the Snitch – same rules as Capture the Flag. A great Snitch can be made by painting a ping pong ball gold and adding some feathers.
6. Relay races using wands as batons
7. Death Eater, Wizards and House Elves. This is a great game if you have a large group. Divide them into 2 groups and explain there are the 3 characters and each has an action:
Death Eaters howl and moan like ghosts
House Elves crouch down, cups their hands over their ears to make them look big, and shriek while ‘shooting’ arrows
Wizards point a ‘wand’ and yell an incantation
After they’ve practised the characters, gather in their teams in the middle of the playing area and each team huddles to decide their character. Then, at the same time, they all act the chosen character.
Death Eaters suck the life out of the House Elves
House Elves shoot Wizards
Wizards spellbind the Death Eaters
Whichever team is the winning character chases the other towards their safe zone. If any are caught they switch sides to the winning team.
This game can easily be adapted to your favourite characters.
Indoor Games
1. Trivia – write up a set of questions ahead or just get one the trivia-based board games.2. Guess the number of Bertie Bott Beans in a jar – Bertie Botts beans are quite expensive for this game, so can use jelly beans. A good prize would be an actual box of the genuine beans.
3. Pin the….. – many variations such as The Glasses on Harry, The Tail on Dudley, The Scar on Harry’s Forehead.
4. Charades – act out characters. books. Items, places
5. Board games – see separate page
Indoor/Outdoor Games
1. Treasure Hunts – can be themed, like Find the Golden Snitch (see Capture the Snitch above for making one) or Sorcerer’s Stone. Depending on the ages of the kids, have clues that lead to the next, and so on until the prize is found. Clues can be rebus pictures, riddles, logic puzzles, word scrambles. Another good idea is to do this last and set it up as the loot bags so at each clue there is loot to collect eg. Gold chocolate coins, badges, collector cards, mini dragons/owls, HP glasses, HP candy.2. Cauldron Throw – a great way to make a cauldron is to paper-mache a beach ball and paint black. For this game would need to weight it down as the kids will be throwing bean bags or stuffed owls or whatever, into it for points. Variations include several cauldrons of different sizes for different point values, or use cheap plywood cut into whatever shape you can think of and painted , with holes cut into it to throw things through. A great shape for this latter idea would be Hogwarts and the windows are the holes. Or Dobby, with his large eyes being holes.
Activity Stations
If you don’t have much space, or are worried about the kids getting too rambunctious, you can set up activity stations:1. Magical Potions – have a variety of juices, sodas, food colouring and flavouring. Kids can mix their own potions and, if you want, can be voted on for a winner
2. Spells – using a Latin dictionary (on-line or a book), compile a list of appropriate Latin verbs and nouns. The guests can use them to write their own spells. A nice touch would be to have ‘parchment paper’ (dip or brush heavy paper in coffee water), quills and ink. Can be followed by Wizard duels after making their own wands (see below) – have a ‘Dumbledore/parent’ judge which spell is stronger.
3. Make Your Own Wands – have a variety of materials available. The wand itself can be made of wood dowelling, twigs, chopsticks, straws, tightly-rolled paper. Then they can paint and decorate them with dragon scales (sequins), unicorn hair (yarn), phoenix feathers (any feathers you can find – Dollar stores often have great colourful ones really cheap), and anything else you can think of. Glow sticks make a great addition to the ends, especially if used in Wizard duels (see above under Spells)
4. Make Your Own Brooms – have a supply of cheap brooms that can be painted and decorated. Can be used in such games as Broom Racing and Quidditch (see above).
5. Magic – have some easy-to-learn magic tricks set up for the kids to learn. Could have them put on a show afterwards.
Prizes
Don’t forget to have a supply of these on hand. Depends how you’re setting it up. If you use the House system then are giving points for each game and can have a larger prize at the end. Loot bags can be filled with all sorts of Harry Potter-themed goodies – see Treasure Hunt above for ideas.I hope I’ve given you lots of ideas and hopefully it will stimulate your imagination to adapt them to your situation and whatever you have on hand. Let the kids help and you’ll be amazed at what else they come up with.