Doing magic tricks for my kids birthday?

March 19, 2024 5:28 PM

My kid is having their 9th brithday party in a couple of weeks. A million years ago when I was a kid, I was a magician, and sometimes did kids birthday parties. My kid wants me to do some tricks at their party. I’m looking for ideas, suggestions!

I don’t think I need to do a whole show. Maybe just a couple of tricks?

I’m looking for things that

a) are pretty easy to do and failsafe
b) little kids will like
c) Maybe take up some time, are entertaining in some way…

I’m okay to buy a trick online or whatever. It’ll be about 8 kids at the party, so it can be close-up probably.

I’m pretty comfortable with performing and okay at entertaining kids.

Any suggestions? For specific tricks, for strategies, etc? It seems maybe fun to have tricks that have some strong participatory/engagement component

posted by ManInSuit to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

Coins from ears, and they get to keep it. Possibly each kid!

Or teach them a trick?
posted by wenestvedt at 6:02 PM on March 19

I was also an aspiring magician as a kid, though I never got the point of doing parties. A few ideas come to mind.

I wouldn't focus on close up magic. You could do a little bit of it, but closeup magic requires more practice and skillful sleight of hand to pull off, and with a bunch of nine year olds crowding around, you'll be tempted to repeat tricks and the magic will trickle away. So I'd focus on parlor tricks, things that can be done from a distance of six to ten feet.

There were two tricks in this category that I loved. They both benefit from some practice, but neither requires skilled sleight of hand. One is where you put a knitting needle through a large balloon without popping it. You need a sharp knitting needle without a knob at the end, but beyond that it's quite simple. The other is torn-and restored newspaper, which requires a few copies of the same paper and some special folds. I could memail you the instructions for the balloon/knitting needle trick. For the torn and restored newspaper, you'd need to look online for the folding instructions. Both are very easy, and very entertaining.

The kids would probably also be entertained by the story of the captain's shirt. The version I do with my daughter is a little scarier (and more fun). A child loves boats, and eventually their parents give them a sailor's cap, and they pretend to sail. Eventually, after much nagging, the parents give the child a boat. The child rushes out to go sailing, even though a storm is coming. The storm tears of the front and end of the boat, and eventually the sail. In the end, all the parents recover is the child's shirt. (As shown in the video, at each step along the way, there are more paper folds that illustrate the action. The final reveal -- the shirt -- is a big surprise and generally gets a good reaction.)

Good luck, and have fun!
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:51 PM on March 19 [2 favorites]

The bloody knitting needle through the forearm trick would be a big hit.
There's also plenty of science experiments that are magic tricks, many done with supermarket items.
posted by Sophont at 2:56 AM on March 20

When I was a kid I remember liking the "Three jacks rob a bank" trick - the point here being that the charm of the thing comes from the storytelling. It is a simple enough trick that you could always show it them afterwards.
posted by rongorongo at 7:10 AM on March 20

Cabbage-water color change was the basis of one of the magic tricks we did at a birthday party around that age.... you can develop your own theme/story around it, and the actual trick is easy enough for your kid to do themself (pour a prepared acid or base into the cabbage water to trigger the color change).
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:19 AM on March 20

We used to have fun with billet reading at parties for kids about that age. This book explains how on page 70 and also has a bunch more tricks you can do.

The basic idea is you do the "one ahead" method using a confederate - in this case, your kid, which will double the fun for them. You just agree ahead of time what word kid will write, then they mark their slip somehow by a special fold or a dot on the outside, or whatever. So you pick a slip, avoiding kid's special marked slip, hold it to your forehead, pretend to mind read it, it & say kid's word. Kid gets all excited and you make a big deal about how amazing it was that birthday kid's word was chosen first. Then you open the slip to "confirm" that you got it and of course you are actually reading the next word you need to "mind read." Then discard the slip somewhere the kids can't see it, taking care they can't see the back of or read the slip at this time.

Presumably you have left the room while they write their words, and they have all shown them to each other, so everybody knows what kid has written on their slip, which will increase the amazement.

Now you can proceed through the rest of the slips, saving kid's marked slip for last, and always knowing one ahead what the next slip will be, without opening it.

One thing you have to be careful of is not showing the current slip to the audience - because, obviously, it won't match what you're saying. Keep it close as you glance it and, then fold it back up and drop it into a separate bag or box, so by the time you're done all the slips are there with no evidence remaining. At that point the kids can examine all the slips.

A lot of the fun is how you stretch it out, tell stories related to the word or how you're trying to guess it, pretend to have difficulty reading through thick paper or bad handwriting, etc. With 8 kids you could take some real time with it. It's also fun for birthday kid to have a special secret to keep from their friends and be on the "inside" of the trick.
posted by flug at 11:19 AM on March 20 [1 favorite]