[Childcare Magic] Easy! A special feature on magic tricks you’ll want to show kids
Kids love mysterious things, don’t they?
Their wide-eyed looks and curious head tilts are absolutely adorable.
So why not perform some magic at a birthday party or seasonal event?
You might feel nervous with kids watching, but with simple methods you can pull off tricks that will make them gasp.
Once you practice and learn a trick, you can adapt it to many different situations—highly recommended.
Use this article as a guide to find some jaw-dropping magic tricks!
- [For Kids] Magic Tricks You Can Perform at Daycare or Kindergarten
- Super easy magic tricks kids can do! Fun tricks you can play right away
- Simple magic tricks that delight kids: surprising to watch and make you want to try them yourself.
- Magic with balloons: recommended tricks for parties and performances
- Magic tricks using bags. Mysterious tricks with paper bags and plastic bags.
- Easy! Magic tricks that liven up a Christmas party. Simple tricks and their secrets revealed.
- Magic tricks with balls: recommended tricks for parties and performances
- Magic using drawings and illustrations. Recommended tricks for parties and performances.
- With Explanations: Easy Magic Tricks for Lower-Grade Elementary School Children — How to Do Simple Tricks
- [Magic] Crowd-Pleasers for Elementary Schools! A Collection of Magic Trick Ideas Perfect for Fun Parties
- Useful for childcare! Birthday party performances and popular entertainment ideas
- Magic you can do using only your hands—no props needed! Perfect to perform at school.
- [Easy] A Beginner’s Guide to Card Magic: Tricks Even Elementary School Kids Can Do Right Away
[Childcare Magic] Easy! A Collection of Magic Tricks to Show Kids (21–30)
Make a lollipop stand upright
This is a simple magic trick using candies that kids love.
All you need is a round lollipop—it’s really easy.
The only real trick is balancing it.
Place the candy on your palm with the candy part down and the stick pointing up.
Tilt the stick and pinch it between your fingers as if holding it down.
When you open your fingers, the stick slowly rises, moving in a slightly mysterious, almost lifelike way.
Before releasing your fingers, say a magic word, and react dramatically in time with the speed of the stick rising!
The straw that never gets used up
You hold five straws in your hand and say, “I’ll pull one out from here,” then remove one right in front of them.
Logically, there should be four straws left in your hand… but wait—there are still five.
You try again and say, “Let’s pull out one more,” yet even after removing another, the number of straws remains five and doesn’t decrease.
It’s a simple trick that can puzzle even adults, and the secret is very straightforward: inside a straw that has a vertical slit cut into it, you hide another straw of the same color, and the one you’re pulling out is the inner straw.
A tip to make the inner straw easier to remove is to make the slit straw slightly shorter.
Does the contents of the plastic bottle get swapped?!
This is a magic trick where the contents of plastic bottles appear to switch.
You shake two bottles at the same time—one filled with water and one with cola—and the contents seem to swap, guaranteeing a big reaction.
You’ll need empty plastic bottles labeled for water and cola, mouthwash, dechlorination tablets or drops, and black paint.
The “cola” is made by diluting mouthwash with water.
Attach the dechlorinator to the underside of the cap.
For the water bottle, preload black paint under its cap as well.
When you shake both bottles simultaneously, one turns clear/whitish and the other turns black, creating the illusion that the contents have switched.
Card Theater Magic
This is called card theater magic, where you perform magic using cards.
Prepare circles in various colors and draw something round that can be that color on the back.
With a magic spell and a quick flip, a simple circle transforms into an object.
It’s fun to imagine what it will turn into, and it’s a good brain exercise.
Revealing the trick while presenting it like a story also makes it more engaging.
Starting with just plain round shapes, it’s also fun to connect circles or add something to the circles.
A banknote that can’t be cut even with scissors
Put a bill in an envelope and cut straight through the middle from the outside with scissors…and the bill should get cut too.
But in this trick, when you open the envelope that’s been sliced in two right before their eyes, out comes a perfectly intact bill! The secret is simply to pre-cut two slits on the back of the envelope for the bill to pass through.
When you insert the bill, thread it through those slits so that only the middle section runs outside the inner layer of the envelope, and insert the scissors only between the inner layers of the envelope.
It’s a crowd-pleaser that gets everyone on edge and screaming, thinking, “You’re going to cut the money?!”
A pen went through the hole of a 5-yen coin.
Place a 5-yen coin on top of a plastic bottle with the cap removed, and show the children that a pencil can’t pass through the hole in the coin.
Then cover the coin with a sheet of paper rolled into a tube.
When you drop the pencil quickly into the tube, the coin flips once inside and it looks as if the pencil has gone right through it! It’s a magic trick that’s very easy to do without practice as long as you have the right props, so I highly recommend it.
If you say, “I’m going to cast a spell now,” before dropping the pencil, the kids will be glued to the magic, watching with excitement!
When you pull it, an image appears.
It’s a mysterious magic trick where, when you pull a circle out from inside a frame, a picture appears inside the circle.
All you need to prepare is construction paper and a clear file.
You can use not only circles but any shape you like, such as squares or triangles.
It’s a magic trick you’ll never get tired of watching.
By playing with colors, you can create a variety of motifs, so why not add more motifs to suit the children’s preferences? It would be great to prompt them with words that spark excitement, like “Who’s going to appear next?” so the children can’t wait to find out.