I Can See Into Your Future

To celebrate Harry Potter and the Half-blood prince movie coming out, our library had a Harry Potter party last week. We divided the activity into several classes based on the books: "Care of Magical Creatures", "Defense against the Dark Arts", "Potions", and "Charms and Divination."

I was to be Professor Trelawney over Charms and Divination. I took three pie pans and filled them up with a mixture of laundry detergent and milk. Then I had the children put a few drops of food coloring in and spin the mixture with their hand. It makes a cool, dreamy, effect in the pan. Next I would peer into the mixture and pretend to think deeply. Then I would come up with the most outrageous fortune I could think off the top of my head: "you will take a trip to Paris...Paris, Idaho", "You have a long lost twin sister in Australia," "You will have three visitors, young men, The Jonas brothers will visit your home," "You will get a new pet, a pet that likes water, a very big pet, You will get a pet hippo." And on it went.

The children really enjoyed the fortunes. They kept clamoring "me next! me next!" Although there was one boy who didn't like his fortune. I decided to have a little fun with this 7-8 year old boy and said he was going to meet...a girl...who would like him. This, of course, disgusted him and he went stomping off. Maybe if he was just a few years older he would be asking me: "Now what does she look like?"