Magic in the Air! Harry Potter Book Night 2016

Time for a quick overview of our Harry Potter Book Night! This year's theme was "Night of Spells," so I kept as many of our stations in that theme as possible. But I had to have a photo wall station, obviously!

Here's a break down of the evening:

The event went from 5:30 to 7:00 PM.

From 5:45-6:00, we announced the winners of our Create a Spell contest.

From 6:00-6:30, we had a costume contest.

From 6:30-7:00, we had a dueling contest.

During all of these events, we also had stations, and everyone was able to drift from location to location and play as they liked.

Here's a break down of the stations:

Dueling Club Practice: I created instructions a few years ago for wizard duel (a stand-up, cast spells version of rock-paper-scissors). You can find my PDF of the rules here. We only used the simpler version, and they were able to practice for the dueling contest here.

Spellathon Trivia: I copied over the trivia provided in the event packet from the publisher, which was focused on spells. I also left the volunteer in charge of this station with a set of trivia I had made for earlier events, which was organized from easy to hard with questions and quotes. There was not a prize or contest style for this one, just a fun way to pass time (and see if you could answer more questions than your friend).

Seeker Tryouts: We hid several snitches around the children's room. Kids were encouraged to head into that room and bring us back the number of snitches, and we drew one name to give a prize to (and a certificate proclaiming them the new Palm Harbor Library Seeker!).

Drawing Charms: I dragged out a white board and had a game of pictionary running! I copied a bunch (over 200) names and nouns and places and spells from a Harry Potter "dictionary" and had them draw one from a potion bottle to draw. I insisted on drawing Charlie Weasley.

Colin Creevey's Photo Club: This photo wall is a staple of most of our Harry Potter events now. We set up a brick wall background with a Platform 9 3/4 sign and set up a table full of props (most of them stolen from my house because I am a shameless fangirl). It's always a blast. This year we were also able to borrow a standee of the main trio from the last movie, which the kids loved.

Study Hall: We ran off copies of activities from the aforementioned packet from the publishers and a few coloring pages to entertain kids and adults who wanted slightly quieter fun for a bit. My teens were the biggest fans of this table (at least, they colored the most).

Pygmy Puff Adoption: My best friend created a simple pygmy puff craft (using pom poms, googly eyes, craft foam she cut into a variety of shapes, and glue dots) so everyone could design their own pygmy puff to bring home.

Blast-Ended Skrewt Hot Potato: This is literally my favorite thing I've come up with in at least two months. To simulate a creepy, wiggly, kinda slimy baby skrewt, we grabbed a bunch of water snake wiggly things from an adaptive toys kit and played hot potato to Harry Potter music around a burnt box of "WARNING: BLAST-ENDED SKREWTS." These things are ridiculous to throw and catch and it was the fan favorite of the night (closely followed by dueling, so I think that means I earned a good 20 points for Hufflepuff).