• Make wizardly cookies and have the children decorate them. It makes a good opening activity.
• In your yard, set up a number of stations with small tasks at each.
- The first could be cupboard under the stairs, proceeding to various stores at Diagon Alley, on to King's Cross platform 9 3/4, and the last Gryffindor.
- Kids could take the 'train', made of cardboard boxes, from station to station and be required to mix and drink the magic potion, ride the Nimbus 2000 through obstacles, find hidden keys, answer a simple Harry Potter trivia question, unscramble a related word, and dig for a hidden treasure in a bucket of sand, for example.
• Play a simple game of Quidditch, perhaps by sweeping balls into a goal, tagging opponents with foam balls, racing, dodging and tagging.
Teams can be selected from a sorting hat, which if you are really ambitious can have recorded message or a walkie-talkie receiver inside, singing the sorting hat's song and deciding each child's house assignment.
T-shirts or pins can designate team names.
• Slay the dragon by whacking a dragon pinata.
• Play pin the pig tail on Dudley.
• Guess the number of Every Flavor Beans in a jar.
• Play Harry Potter Trivia.
• Any number of hiding/finding games can be adapted to the theme.
• Make W-I-Z-A-R-D bingo boards.
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