How to Lead a Harry Potter Care of Magical Creatures Class

With Part One of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows set to hit theaters this fall, Harry Potter has again become the hot trend for birthday and Halloween parties. If your child is Harry Potter fan, give them the ultimate movie experience by re-creating classes from Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at their next birthday or Halloween party.

One of Harry's, Ron's, and Hermione's favorite classes throughout the Harry Potter series was Care of Magical Creatures with their friend Hagrid. Give your kids a chance to learn about magical creatures just like the Harry Potter characters.

Collect enough dark robes for everyone in the party to wear as students of Hogwart's. In a pinch, navy blue children's bathrobes can work. Make badges for each of the Hogwart's houses to pin on different robes. Some churches and local children's choirs might be willing to loan their dark choir robes, but be prepared to have them cleaned before returning them.

Give each child a wand to work with during her Care of Magical Creatures Class. You can make this a separate activity by providing thin wooden dowels, paint and decorations so children can make their own wands. Or purchase a variety of "magic wands" from children's costume shops.

The ideal Care of Magical Creatures instructor would naturally be Hagrid. If you have a large, bearded friend, ask him to don a robe and get into character. Check with local theater guilds. Often, local actors are happy to take their acting skills into the community. If not, grab a costume beard, belt on some pillows to add weight and speak in a gruff voice.

As your Hogwart's students enter the Harry Potter party, get them into the class quickly. Provide a variety of stuffed animals-dragons, unicorns, wombats, snakes, snails. Look for stuffed animal toys that have unique colors, shimmer effects or exotic features. Invite each child to choose one animal and take it to his "desk" or work table. Explain that this is the first Harry Potter party assignment. This is a pop quiz on how much they know about magical creatures. Each child must write a paragraph report about her animal: what it is, where it's from, what it eats, and any magical or dangerous qualities.

Provide quills and scrolls for students to write their Magical Creatures reports. Make quills by gluing large peacock feathers to standard pens. To make scrolls, crumple typing paper into balls, soak it in brewing tea and let it dry. Glue a thin wooden dowel to the top and bottom of each piece of parchment paper. Then roll each wooden stick into the center of the scroll. Tie a short piece of ribbon around it to hold it closed. Make several of these before the class begins.

When the Hogwarts students have finished their Magical Creatures essays, ask them to introduce their animal to the class and read their essay. Ask the class if they remember anything else about the creatures to add to the report. Your kids will have fun adding on to each other's crazy stories and sharing their own.

Other activities can vary based on your children's interests. You can give guests modeling clay in the different Hogwart's house colors. Provide wiggle eyes, pipe cleaners, paint and other decorations. Give children a made-up animal name, like Snovartte. Ask them to continue their pop quiz by making one, but don't give them any direction to see what it should look like, whether it's a bird, reptile or mammal, etc. Guests can take their magical creatures home to display for their parents.

Have a trivia game for your Harry Potter party guests to quiz them on what they remember about all the magical creatures from the book. Interactive quizzes can be found online, or make your own with index cards. Keep points among the different houses.

You can also play a Guess Who type game. Give each teach a card with four clues and see who can guess the magical creature first.