Elementary School Magic show/Class

[ArmanMagic]

Hey guys,

This is my third forum post this week so sorry for flooding the forums with all my updates and questions. Anyhow my friend's mother works at an elementary school which does an after school enrichment class every so often and they asked me if I would like to perform and teach the kids a couple of magic tricks. The class will have 20 kids and they all would have to pay in order to go to the class. They told me I can charge whatever amount of money I wanted for the class and also ask to buy any supplies they might need for learning an effect. I said I would charge $5 because $3 would go to me and the rest can go to buying the kids a deck of cards. Now the class is about an hour long so I would have about 30 minutes to perform an effect and 30 minutes to teach the kids a couple of effects. Now I wanted these tricks to be easy to do so I was wondering what kid of resources should I go to for finding tricks to teach? The kids are going to 4th-5th graders so they will be a little bit more mature. Anyway if you guys could help that'd be awesome.

 

[RealityOne]

Arman:

This age has its own challenges. They will tell you magic isn't real and yell out guesses as to your methods. Being in High School, you have the advantage of seeming cool to them.

Here are the effects I've taught in similar situations:

1. Find A Card Effect - Using a set up deck (half red, half black)
2. Traveling Aces from Scarne on Card Tricks
3. Effect Using a Cross Cut Force
4. Effect Using a Key Card
5. Spelling Effect - Nomenclature from Scarne on Card Tricks
6. Remote Viewing (Spectator Separates Packet Into Red and Black) from Fulves SWMM

Shoot me a PM if you want to discuss the effects.

 

[RickEverhart]

Depending on how good they are with math you could teach them Magic Square.

Another cheap thing you could do is buy rubber bands and teach them broken and restored rubber band and rubber band through thumb.

You could do the jumping rubber bands from fingers to fingers. I normally do this with 3 different colored rubber bands. Red, Blue and Yellow. The red and blue are able to switch fingers while the yellow one is intertwined over the tops of the fingers.

Ill keep brainstorming today...I have to teach my own 4th grade class right now...ha ha.

 

[lax047]

I would use some of the first tricks you learned, they are likely to be pretty easy and hopefully would inspire some of these kids to take up magic.

 

[Madrovych]

I would recommend to teach them some self working card stuff, and some easy to do coin vanishes, and as aforementioned, rubber band tricks.
Another thing is pretty good for impressing mostly young audiences is this trick:
1) take Ziploc bag (size doesn't matter, but the regular zipping kind)
2) rip off top part with the zip.
3) cut one of the ends of it off, so that you are left with one long piece that can be zipped in half.
4) put in hand, and use thumb to move it back and forth.

really easy, fun, and a good trick for kids. And have some simple patter about static electricity or magnets in the ziploc bag enabling you to do this.