A Very Harry Birthday Part 3: Great Hall Sorting Ceremony

This is Part 3 of the Harry Potter Party series. 

"Part 2: Diagon Alley" can be found HERE.
"Part 1: Invitations & the Entry to Platform 9-3/4" can be found HERE.

After the kids passed through the brick wall, we were ready for the 'Sorting Ceremony.' 

Great Hall

A quick 'shout-out' to my mom who painted the 'Fat Lady' for Little Tomato for her birthday. After passing through the brick wall, this showed that the kids were entering Hogwarts. This is an OIL PAINTING. She doesn't mess around. 😋

The Fat Lady.

Once we passed the Fat Lady, I welcomed the kids to Hogwarts. I read Professor McGonagall's speech about the Sorting Ceremony and then brought out the Sorting Hat and chair for the girls to be sorted.

I found the various speeches we used in the book, typed them up, and printed them on paper for each of the adults to read. The Professor McGonagall speech can be found HERE too.

For the Sorting Hat, we played the audio from our Harry Potter audiobooks narrated by Jim Dale. We used Husband's digital recorder from college (which, amazingly, still works!) and recorded the Sorting Hat Song first. 

We then created a 'Class Roster' with the kid's names in alphabetical order and called them up one by one to get sorted. Track 1 on the recorder was the Sorting Hat Song. Tracks 2-14 were each of the kid's houses shouted out by Jim Dale (as the Sorting Hat).

So... I don't think I have mentioned the little party hiccup yet. 

We had a storm hit our area the night before the party. After a late evening spent in the tornado shelter, our power was still out the next day when the kids started arriving. With our house on a well, this meant no functioning sinks or flushing toilets. The refrigerator was not working. No lights. No audio system. Eek! 

We stocked up on bottles of water and wet wipes. We brought in our cooler and bought more ice bags. We used a bluetooth speaker to play music for a short time, but with our cell phone batteries dying, it only lasted until we started the Diagon Alley activities. 

We were luckily still able to play the Sorting Hat Ceremony through the digital recorder,  but I was really disappointed that we weren't able to run it through our audio system - the volume was not ideal on the recorder speaker. 

Sorting Ceremony

For those interested:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Chapter 07B track, 1:58 - 3:23 - Sorting Hat Song
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Chapter 07C track,  0:43/0:44 - Ravenclaw!
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Chapter 07C track, 2:36 - Gryffindor!
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Chapter 07C track, 4:26 - Gryffindor!

We only sorted the kids into Gryffindor & Ravenclaw. We went back and forth on whether we would have the time or fair weather to play quidditch. To be safe, we designed the party for two houses so that we could add quidditch to our activities if we ultimately decided to add it.

Once the kids were sorted, they received a scarf to wear at the party in their house colors. Little Tomato had expressed an interest in learning to sew, so this was a really fun and easy beginner's sewing project for her to practice sewing. We kept these for us to use at future parties.

Sorting Hat chair and house scarves.

We had the dining room table set with red & gold and blue & silver plates for their houses. Once the kids were sorted, they sat at the table based on their house colors. 

Gryffindor & Ravenclaw place settings @ the table.

We then had Dumbledore enter the room to give his start of term announcements (and, of course, his iconic "Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!" speech). 

Dumbledore giving his start-of-term announcements. 

And a quick closeup of my Hogwarts crest. This was also made of insulation foam. I sketched the design onto the foam, used a heat Xacto tool (like THIS one) to carve out the design, and sprayed it with stone-effect spray paint (like THIS).

Hogwarts Crest

After the start of term announcements, it was time to begin classes! 

Next up, Part 4: Class Lessons & the Troll in the Dungeon