Throw a Harry Potter Party | Harry Potter & Hogwarts Party with Quidditch for Muggles

The new instalment of the Harry Potter story, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is currently in theatres and I cant wait to see it! Until I can get my hands on a ticket, I've been thinking about throwing a Harry Potter themed party.

Appealing to kids and big kids like me, there are lots of brilliant ideas around for throwing a Harry Potter party. The books also give us lots of ideas for games, clothes, food and drink which are really easy to replicate.

Harry Potter Party Decorations

It's super easy to recreate a Hogwarts style settings for your Harry Potter party. Simply cover walls with this stone castle backdrop and top with this castle battlements border. These brilliant 9 pack of castle windows, stairways and torches can the be added, along with these official Harry Potter Hogwarts banners. Decorate tables with LED candles and hang from the ceiling to recreate the floating candles at Hogwarts. If you close the curtains and just use candlelight this will create a great Harry Potter party atmosphere. Cover other surfaces such as shelves and mantelpieces with wizard animals such as snakes and owls. These authentic looking potion bottles and large cauldron will also look great on the tables.

Harry Potter Party Fancy Dress

Well the obvious costume is of course Harry Potter himself. Very easy to recreate with this Harry Potter robe and glasses and don't forget Harry's scar with this latex Harry Potter scar kit. Or how about going as Ron with this ginger wig, Dumbledore with the long white wig and beard or Hagrid with this bushy brown beard?

Harry Potter Party Food

The Harry Potter books are full of mentions of food and drink, so it's quite easy to recreate. The easiest ones are using a frog mould to make chocolate frogs and jelly beans could be all flavour beans - cookingwithcurls.com One of the most famous drinks from Harry Potter is Butterbeer and there are literally hundreds of recipes for Butterbeer on the Internet, but this one is fast and easy, and doesn't require any cooking, which is great because kids love to help make it!

Harry Potter Party Butterbeer

• 2 litre bottle cream soda
• 2 tablespoons Butter Extract
• 2 teaspoons Rum Extract

Drop the extracts into the 2 litre bottle, put on cap and slowly rotate until combined.

Cream topping

• Marshmallow creme
• Whipped cream
• 1 teaspoon rum extract

Add all items together in an electric mixer and combine until smooth. Pour the Butterbeer into a glass, drizzle with the cream topping, and enjoy!

You can even print out these brilliant butterbeer labels from jentaylordraws.

You may want to make gift bags for your guests with little trinkets if it is a child's party. You could add a wand for each child and a small paper bag of jelly beans with a Bertie Bots Beans label would be a definite crowd pleaser.

Harry Potter Party Games & Activities

Broom racing is a brilliant Harry Potter party activity for all age kids. Do it as a relay race where kids hand over the broom as a baton and run with it between their legs or you could get each team to run together making sure they all stay on the broom. This official Harry Potter firebolt broom looks amazing and would make a great present for a Harry Potter obsessed child. Other games based on Quidditch involving the golden snitch could be anything from pass the parcel or simple catching games or a 'Find the Golden Snitch' treasure hunt where finding the golden snitch is the last clue.

Or for the rebels amongst the guests, they can take turn having their photo taken in this Sirius Black wanted poster. Simple to make out of cardboard and you have your very own Harry Potter photo booth. Another great game for younger kids is a Harry Potter wand game where kids have to cast a spell on (pop) as many bubbles as they can in the allotted time.

For a muggle version of the famous Quidditch game (played on the ground rather than in the air), Jodi Palmer, a PE teacher, came up with this version. Probably best for a slightly old children ands it also helps if the players have either read the Harry Potter books or seen the movies so they know the basic lingo used in Quidditch. "Other than that, you need the ability to run away from an opponent or to chase one and the ability to throw and catch -- that's it," says Palmer. Materials Needed One foam football (quaffle); 4 to 8 solid colour foam balls, each about 8 inches in diameter (bludgers); 1 small super-bouncy ball (snitch); and 6 hula hoops (goals). The hoops need to hang about 6 feet off the ground from a football net crossbar, tree branch, or something similar (three at each end). Each team should wear same colour shirts. Rules To begin the game, 8 to 10 players per team are assigned positions. If more kids want to join in the fun, additional players can easily be added. Here's what the positions do: Chaser: Three to four per team. Chasers are offensive players similar to strikers in football. They try to throw the quaffle through one of the hoops to score 10 points. Beater (or Tagger): Three to four per team. They use the bludger to tag out chasers and the seeker. The beaters are defensive players. Seeker: One to two people per team (depending upon your team size), who, when the snitch is released, try to catch it to score 150 points. Keeper: This person guards the goals and tries to block any attempt to score. Each team has one keeper. Game Play The game begins with a chaser from each team standing in the center with the other teammates positioned around them (much like a basketball game tip-off). The beaters stand back some, protecting their goals. The quaffle is tossed into the air by the referee (that's you) and the center chasers try to tip the ball to another chaser on their team. Seekers and beaters don't touch the quaffle.

Once the quaffle is caught by a chaser, she runs with it toward the three hula hoop goals. If she throws the quaffle through one of the opposing team's hoops, she earns 10 points for the team. Meanwhile, beaters are playing defense, attempting to stop the chasers from advancing or scoring by throwing the soft foam bludgers at them. Once tagged with the bludger, the chaser must stop moving and try to pass the quaffle to another chaser on the same team (once she makes the pass, she can move again). If the quaffle is dropped or intercepted by a chaser on the opposing team, that team takes possession. When a goal is scored, players return to the centre for a new tip-off. At some point in the game, the referee will release the snitch. As the only players who can touch the snitch, this is where the seekers come into play. Just like in the movie, the snitch needs to move as much as possible, which is why a super-bouncy ball is needed. If the snitch stops rolling or bouncing without being picked up, it goes back to the referee to be released again later in the game. The first seeker to catch the snitch scores 150 points for his team, the game immediately ends, and the points are tallied to determine a winner. Usually, but not always, it's the team that earned an extra 150 points by catching the snitch. adapted from bhg.com.

For more Harry Potter party ideas visit our Harry Potter Party Ideas Pinterest board. Visit the party packs page for the the full Harry Potter party range.