Spring Break
Giving kids a taste of witches, wizards
Booth Library hosted Muggle Children's Day
James Roedl/Staff Reporter
Issue date: 10/26/09 Section: News
| |
|
Booth hosted "Muggle Children's Day with Harry Potter," as part of the "Harry Potter's World" exhibit.
The day started with story time, led by Sable Harp, a senior history major and an intern with the Ballenger Teachers Center.
Nine children listened as Harp read stories of magic and dragons.
During a story about a wizard who changes the shape of a frog, one child threatened to turn Harp into a dog.
"What kind of dog?" Harp said, to which the boy replied a Labrador.
Following story time, Harp showed the children how to make magic wands out of newspaper, tin foil and pipe cleaners.
To show the young wizards and witches how powerful their new wands are, librarians told the children to wave the wands and say magic words to turn on the lights in a special room.
The children seemed skeptical, as a motion sensor controlling the lights flickered them on after the children waved their wands.
The room, designed to represent a Hogwarts classroom, was decorated from top to bottom with magical books and objects representing all the subjects covered by the fictional school.
Rick Reed brought his son and daughter who read the books to the events Saturday and to the game night Thursday.
He said his kids were excited to come.
As more children arrived, the sorting of the houses began. In the Harry Potter series, students are sorted into one of four houses - Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw - where they live and compete for school honors. The "sorting hat" is placed on each student's head and decides which house the student should be placed in.
A similar sorting happened Saturday in Booth.
Harp is a member of the Harry Potter Club and the Slytherin house, which has a bad reputation, and she warned children not to hold one house above the other, citing famous members from all houses.
The Harry Potter Club was on hand to help with the events, with members dressed as characters from the book, such as Albus Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall.
After the children were sorted into their respective houses, a review of monsters from the Harry Potter series was presented. Librarians helped participants draw monsters from their imagination and turn the drawings into a book.
One child shared the monsters drawn in her book. Her drawing included Harry Potter, a spider and her own name.
While the children worked on activities, videos of Harry Potter puppet shows were played along with music from wizard band Draco and the Malfoys.
"This is pretty awesome," said ten-year-old Reece Hutchinson, who had come from Marshall to partake in the activities.
The Quidditch match was saved for the end of the day. Quidditch is a game from the Harry Potter series that is played on brooms. The rules of the game were altered to allow for the lack of flying brooms.
"Seeing kids excited, happy and sharing is the best repayment," Harp said after two children thanked her for the event.
James Roedl can be reached at 581-7942 or DENnewsdesk@gmail.com.
The Daily Eastern News encourages on-topic, civil discussion on its articles posted online. It is our policy not to screen comments before they are posted or edit them after they are posted. However, we reserve the right to remove comments that are off-topic, malicious, libelous or include excessive foul language. The DEN also reserves the right to turn off all comments on any story it deems necessary.
Comments violating copyright law will also be removed.
Users who repeatedly violate this policy will be banned from commenting.
If you have any questions on our comment policy or wish to report a comment that you feel violates these standards, please e-mail a link to the article to our Online Editor at DENNews.com@gmail.com.
Be the first to comment on this story