Educational Insights EI-5166 User Manual

Magic School

Textbook

EI-5166

Ages 6+

Grades 1+

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Welcome to the Magic Show!

You have just entered the exciting, magical world of illusion. Spend some time studying steps 1-5 to understand how this book works. Then turn the page to begin your magic schooling. Soon, everyone will be yelling, “How did you do that?”

Becoming a Magician

Become familiar with your props.

Here are the magical items included in this kit. Study the pictures and their names below. If you are learning a trick and do not know what an item is, refer back to these pictures.

Magic wand

Surprise

bottle

Vanishing

water vase

Red square with hole

and 2 plastic windows

with 4 rubber bands

Egg cup

and half egg

Blue trick box

with lid

Metal ring

Spring

Small pink

bead

4 plastic rings

(red, yellow, blue)

4 thimbles

(2 large and 2 small)

Green trick box

with loose partition

Choose a trick to perform.

he number of stars next to the title of each trick indicates how easy a trick is

T to learn and perform. Start with the ★ tricks. They are easy to learn and do not require much practice. The ★★ tricks are easy, but require more practice. The ★★★ tricks require more time to learn and some more practice to get the illusion just right. Study the diagram below to understand the format for the tricks.

Practice your tricks.

Before the day of your big performance, practice, practice, practice! Memorize the tricks you plan to perform. You don’t want to be looking at this guide during your show. It’s a good idea to practice in front of a mirror, too. If you plan to perform in front of a large audience, first practice in front of your family and friends at home.

Dice tunnel

Rope

Toy owl

Magic box

7 half-balls

(red, yellow and blue)

5 trick cards

A rubber band is also included.

Playing die

Boomerang

card

Cage in frame with enclosed

owl picture

This kit contains most of the equipment required to perform the activities described. In addition, you will need some common household objects listed below. Don’t worry if you can’t find all of them. If you see this symbol pictured before a trick, that means you need one or more of the items from the following list.

• a handkerchief (substitute a paper towel, bandana, napkin, washcloth or any cloth)

• coins

• clear tape

• toothpicks

• paper clips

• clear plastic cup or glass

• food coloring (yellow, red, blue)

• needle

• thread (black and white)

• 5 envelopes

• a key (with a large hole) OR a key chain

• potato

• banana

• beads (with holes in them to make a necklace)

• salt and pepper

• comb

• felt pen

• telephone book

• pencil

• dollar bill

• small ruler

• an old change purse, opaque pencil case OR a playing card box

• 2 candlesticks

per

•

• hat (or a basket or bag)

• spare rubber bands

tor

calcula

•

Set the stage.

As a magician, your appearance is important. Wear a fun costume – perhaps the classic tuxedo with white gloves and a top hat or a fancy dress. Long sleeves, for hiding things in, are always a good idea. It’s also helpful to wear a dark-colored shirt and pants or a skirt with pockets. during your show helps to disguise noises.

Find a table for displaying your props and cover it with an eye-catching tablecloth. Remember that magic is about illusion, so how things look is as important as what you do.

Put on a magic show.

After all this preparation, it’s time to display your talents. Decide on your audience – your friends, family

, the school talent show

, a local seniors’

– be creative! Almost everyone loves to watch a magician.

Finally, don’t forget to get your audience involved

during the performance. People like to draw cards,

produce coins, or even answer questions. This

makes them feel in control and part of the show. When you involve the audience, they will be all

the more surprised when you pull a trick on them!

Begin your magic schooling now. Abracadabra…you’re a magician!

Playing music

home

Table of Contents

★ Growing Wand ..................................................................6

★ The Floating Wand..............................................................6

★ Soft Wand..........................................................................6

★★ The Rising Wand ................................................................7

★ One Red Ball Becomes Two ..................................................7

★ A Ball that Changes Color ....................................................7

★ Vanishing and Reappearing Water I ......................................8

★★★ Colored Water ....................................................................8

★ Vanishing and Reappearing Water II ....................................8

★ A Thimble Passes Through a Handkerchief ............................9

★ The Color-Changing Thimble in a Handkerchief ......................9

★ One Thimble to Two ..........................................................9

★★ Jumping Thimble ..............................................................10

★★★ The Really Jumping Thimble................................................10

★ Baffling Boomerangs ..........................................................11

★ The Houdini Coin ..............................................................11

★ Which Name Remains? ........................................................11

★★★ The Moving Metal Ring ......................................................12

★ The Ring and Spring..........................................................12

★ The Ring that Changes Color ..............................................12

★ The Disappearing Ring ......................................................13

★ The Professional Card Box..................................................13

★★★ The Telephone Directory Prediction ......................................13

★ The Magic Card ................................................................14

★ The Dice Tunnel ................................................................14

★ Where is the Egg? ............................................................15

★ The Jumping Ring ............................................................15

★★ Ghost in the Bottle ............................................................15

★ The Escaping Ring ............................................................16

★ A Mysterious Guess............................................................16

★ The Disappearing Owl in the Box ........................................17

★ Where Did the Little Owl Go? ..............................................17

★★ Where Did the Knot Go? ....................................................18

★★ The Cards Change Place......................................................18

★ The Owl Cage....................................................................19

★ The Unbreakable Toothpick ................................................19

★ Devaluation ......................................................................20

★★★ The Rising Ring................................................................20

★★★ Rising Wand II ..................................................................21

★ Thimble in Vase ................................................................21

★★★ Thimbles Disappearing from the Right Hand

and Reappearing on the Left ..............................................22

★★ Which Thimble is Chosen? ..................................................23

★ Dotty Dots........................................................................23

★★ Disappearing Die ..............................................................24

★★ The Spooky Die ................................................................24

★★ Roving Rubber Band..........................................................25

★★ The Jumping Ball ............................................................25

★★ Another Ball that Changes Color ........................................25

★★ The Three Magic Knots ......................................................26

★★ Flash Knot........................................................................26

★★ The Disappearing Knot ......................................................27

★★ The Key and the Rope ........................................................27

★ It’s “Knot” a Problem ........................................................28

★★★ The Balancing Ball ............................................................28

★★★ Who Has the Ball? ............................................................28

★★ The Appearing Wand ........................................................29

★ OAR ................................................................................29

★★ The Floating Magic Wand ..................................................30

★★★ X–Ray Eyes ......................................................................30

★★ How to Paralyze a Spectator ..............................................30

★★★ The Ghost Wand ................................................................31

★★ Appearing Pencil ..............................................................31

★ A Five Plays Jokes ............................................................31

★★★ Karate with a Dollar Bill....................................................32

★★ How Old Are You? ............................................................32

★★ The Enchanted Necklace......................................................33

★★ The Magic Envelopes..........................................................33

★★ The Salt and Pepper Trick ..................................................34

★★ The Banana Trick..............................................................34

★ The S

★★ The Vanishing Coin............................................................35

★★ Heads or Tails ..................................................................36

★ The Magic Paper Clips ......................................................36

★ Mind Reading ..................................................................37

★★ Mind Reading II................................................................37

loppy Surgeon ..........................................................35

Growing Wand ★

Make a small wand magically grow and grow to normal length. This is a very good trick to open your magic show. Slide one of the white ends along the wand and hold the wand in your closed fists. The remainder of the wand should be hidden in your fist, and partly under your shirt sleeve if necessary. Gradually separate your hands, holding on to the two white ends until the wand has reached a normal length.

The Rising Wand ★★

Thread a piece of rubber band through the wand and secure it with a white bead to either end. (You may need to use two rubber bands; see blue diagram.) Secretly, take the bead between two fingers (make sure that the audience sees the palm side of your hand and not the side where the bead is hidden) and push the wand down, holding it firmly between your thumb and fingers. When you loosen your grip slightly, the wand will mysteriously rise.

The Floating Wand ★

Grasp the wand in your left hand and grip your left wrist with your right hand. Tell your audience that to execute this trick you need a very steady hand and for this reason you are holding your wrist with your right hand. Announce that you are going to magnetize your hand. Then, secretly press your right-hand index finger against the wand. The wand is now supported, and when you straighten your fingers it will appear to float. Move your hands to make the illusion even more effective.

Soft Wand ★

Effect: The magic wand, held in your hand, suddenly becomes soft!

Performance: Hold the wand loosely at one end, between the tips of your thumb and first finger. Then, quickly, move your hand up and down. This will create the illusion that the wand is soft and flexible.

One Red Ball Becomes Two ★

Take the red half-ball; place it over the top of the whole red ball. When you hold it in your fingers, it will look like one ball. To do the trick, show it as one and quickly remove the real ball from behind it. It’s best to hold both balls in front of your body (not off to the side) so the audience doesn’t see that the half-ball looks more translucent (lighter).

A Ball that Changes Color ★

Place the red half-ball over the whole blue ball and hold it in your right hand so that the audience can only see the red half-ball. (It will look like you are holding a red ball.) Pass your left hand over the balls as if you are secretly doing a magic spell (say something like “Presto Change-o”) and secretly remove the red half-ball. Hide the red half-ball in the palm of your left hand. When you move your hand away,

the audience will think you magically changed the red ball into a blue one. can pass the blue ball around for them to examine.

Remove the red half-ball. Then, hide

it in your hand.

Vanishing and Reappearing Water I ★

o do this trick, you will also need a plastic glass. Very slowly fill up the magic water

T vase until the water level is just below the secret hole at the top of the back of the vase. (If you want, you can fill the vase in front of your audience.) Pick up the vase with your finger over the secret hole and pour some water into the glass...very little will come out. Say, “Look, there is no water here.” Put the vase down and remove your finger from the hole. Wait for a few seconds, say, “Abracadabra, make water appear,” and then pour some water again without covering the hole. The water will really pour out this time because you are not covering the hole.

Colored Water ★★★

Effect: This trick is similar to the previous trick but this time the water will appear to change color as well.

Performance: Before the performance, secretly fill the vanishing water vase with water mixed with blue food coloring. During the performance, have a glass of water dyed red on the table and pour that into the vase. The red dye will mix with the blue and turn purple. Then, when you pour the water out, it will look like purple is coming out even though the audience saw you pour in red! You can do the same trick with yellow and red to make orange or yellow and blue to make green.

Tip: Experiment to find the perfect amount of food coloring and water so that the water noticeably changes color.

Vanishing and Reappearing Water II ★

Set up this trick in the same way as in the Vanishing and Reappearing Water I Trick. Tell your audience that you are going to make the water vanish. Hold up the vase to your mouth and make it appear as though you are drinking the water (make sure you secretly keep your thumb over the hole at the top so that very little water actually goes into your mouth). After “appearing” to drink the water, hold it upside down (with your thumb over the hole) and say, “See, it’s gone!” The audience will laugh.

Next, tell the audience that the water is passing from your body back inside the vase. Turn the vase upside down without covering the hole. Water will come out and the audience will wonder how water could have passed from your body into an apparently empty vase.

A Thimble Passes Through a Handkerchief ★

ecretly place the small yellow thimble on your right index finger, cover it with

S your handkerchief, and place the large thimble on top of the handkerchief making sure that the small thimble is underneath. Show the audience a thimble on a handkerchief, gather up the four corners with your left hand and pull. This will reveal the small thimble underneath! (Note: See page 2 for some ideas to use in place of the handkerchief.)

The Color-Changing Thimble in a Handkerchief ★

Cover your left fist with a handkerchief and secretly tuck the large red thimble into your fist. Show the audience the small yellow thimble on the index finger of your right hand. Place it into the handkerchief (which contains the red thimble). Remove the handkerchief to show the thimble is now red! (See page 2 for items you can use in place of a handkerchief.)

One Thimble to Two ★

Start with a small red thimble on your right index finger and large red thimble on top of this. (Your audience should think you have just one.) Take the handkerchief in your left hand. Hold up your left hand so the audience can see that you are only holding the handkerchief (and that no thimbles are hidden in your left hand). Now, hold the handkerchief in front of your right hand. Use your left hand to quickly and quietly remove the larger thimble and place it on your right middle finger. (It may help to play music in the background so the audience doesn’t hear you sliding the top thimble off your finger.) Take away the handkerchief and the audience now sees two thimbles on your right hand!

Jumping Thimble ★★

With the thimble on your right middle finger, extend your left hand palm upwards. Place your right ring finger and middle finger flat onto the palm of the left hand. Now, very quickly raise your right hand and slap your left palm with your right fingers; at the same time, bend your ring finger and extend your middle finger. Do it again, reversing the action of the fingers, and the thimble APPEARS to jump from one finger to another and back again.

The Really Jumping Thimble ★★★

Although the previous trick can be very deceptive, you should really use it as an introduction to this effect. You will be able to deceive even those who guess how the previous trick was done. Have the thimble on the middle finger as before, but this time as you raise and lower your right hand grip the sides of the thimble with your third finger and thumb. Now you will be able to remove the thimble from your middle finger and insert it onto your ring finger. Now the thimble is REALLY on another finger. You can make the thimble jump onto all your fingers if you spend some time practicing gripping the thimble in all sorts of different ways. Don’t forget in all this jumping that you can still make the thimble appear to jump onto a different finger using the previous trick. (Note: If even the small thimble is too big for your hand, fill the thimble with clay, putty, or dough for a tighter fit.)

Baffling Boomerangs ★

Take the card with the two boomerangs on it and cut them out. If you hold them up (as shown in figure 1), the audience will see that they are the same size. Blow on the pieces and then hold them next to each other (as shown in figure 4). This is an optical illusion, because it will seem that one piece is larger than the other.

The Houdini Coin ★

Place a penny (or any coin) on one of the plastic windows, surround it with the red plastic square with the hole, put the other plastic window on top and secure your “money sandwich” with the four rubber bands provided. Hold it by two edges between the index finger and thumb of your right hand. Cover your hand and the coin with the handkerchief, squeeze the plastic windows, and the coin will secretly drop into your hand. Remove the handkerchief and the coin is gone.

Which Name Remains? ★

Ask your audience to name twelve famous movie stars and write each one down on a piece of paper. Fold each paper and put them into a hat. Then ask to be blindfolded. Take a piece of paper out of the hat and ask the audience to hide the remaining eleven. You know exactly which name is on the paper. Solution: You write the same name on all the papers, but pretend to write a different name on each paper. All you have to do is to remember the name and as the other papers have been hidden, nobody can find out the secret of the trick. Of course, you have to take care that nobody sees the hidden papers afterward.

The Moving Metal Ring ★★★

Get an additional long rubber band (or, if your rubber band is short, cut it so that it makes one long piece of elastic). Slide the metal ring over the rubber band. Twist the rubber band fairly tightly (figure 1) and then conceal a part of the band in your left hand. Tip the band so that the ring falls to touch the left fingers. Now, hold the rubber band so that the right hand is slightly higher than the left (although the rubber band should appear level to the audience). Slowly allow the concealed length of band to slip from your left fingers (figure 2). It is important that you keep your hands the same distance apart as you do this. It appears that the ring is moving along the band but, although your audience will not realize this, it is really the band that is moving.

The Ring and Spring ★

Before you start this trick, push the spring through the metal ring and let the ring drop onto the middle. Give the ring a sharp twist to the right until you feel it click into position. To perform the trick, ask an audience member to remove the ring from the spring in under five seconds...it’s impossible. Take it back, give it a secret twist in the opposite direction, and simply slide the ring off the spring.

The Disappearing Ring ★

ake the green trick box with the loose partition and the small metal ring. Place

T the ring inside the box on top of the partition, telling the audience you are going to make it disappear. Close the box and secretly turn the box over so that the loose partition covers the ring. Open the box and show that the ring has disappeared.

The Professional Card Box ★

Take your magic green trick box with the loose partition, and secretly place a playing card inside and then turn it over. (Notice that if you open the other side it looks empty.) Now ask a member of the audience to choose any card she/he likes from the complete pack. With the picture side up in the “empty side” of the box, close the magic box and make some fancy magic movements to distract the audience while you turn the box over to the other side. Then open the box and show that the card has changed. Make sure you don’t forget where you have put the first card.

The Ring that Changes Color ★

Before the magic show, slide a yellow ring into your green trick box under the loose partition. During the show, open the box to show your audience that it is empty. Place a red plastic ring into the empty part. Close the box and turn it over without being seen. Then open it again. The red ring has become a yellow ring!

The Telephone Directory Prediction ★★★

Ask a volunteer to write down a three-figure number with three different digits (but not ‘0’). Then give the following instruction to the volunteer: “Reverse the order of

, e.g.

the digits in the number and subtract the smaller number from the lar 521–125=396. Now add up the digits and tell me the result, e.g. 3+9=12, 12+6=18. Open the telephone directory to page 18. 1+8=9. Now look in the first column of page 18 in the directory to find the ninth name in the column. Read out the name, address, and telephone number.” Then take an envelope from your pocket and explain that you have already predicted the result. Open the envelope and show a piece of paper with the correct name, address, and telephone number written on it; you will always be right!

Add the digits of the page number, e.g.

ger

+ 14 hidden pages