Besides being tons of fun and a fantastic way to spend time with your kids, learning magic tricks can actually be tremendously beneficial for improving the social and physical skills of children. Magic tricks can teach them how to enhance communication skills, foster creativity and discover the importance of perseverance. They can start with card magic basics, but for now, let's skip overprop bets. Many are drawn to money magic, mentalism, card magic, sleight of hand, playing cards (you can't go wrong with Bicycle cards, or Zoom magic. As the world's largest magic store, we recommend kids avoid flash paper but invest in magic books. From the latest magic tricks to the classics. If you're a super cool parent, taking your offspring to magic conventions would also be well worth considering! We'll show you the right way to learn magic tricks and how to learn card tricks.
As part of our continued series dedicated to helping beginner magicians discover easy magic tricks to perform, we’ve hand-picked some incredibly easy card tricks kids can learn with a regular deck of cards. You don’t need to be David Blaine to perform any of this amazing card magic. Each trick is super simple and doesn’t require any difficult sleight of hand.
Photo Credit: Ari Isenberg
Important Tips Before We Begin
Although these cards tricks are easy to learn, that doesn’t mean they won’t require practice.
- Make sure to practice them until you're completely comfortable before performing for your friends and family.
- Magic is a form of theater. Make sure to add a bit of drama and magical gestures to make things exciting!
- Most importantly, never share your secrets with your audience! Leave them guessing. That’s the fun of magic!
The “Key” to Finding any Card
- Have your spectators shuffle the cards.
- Fan through the deck face-up to show they are random cards and fairly mixed.
- Memorize the bottom card as you do this (we'll use the Ace of Spades). This will be your key card. (Tip: Don’t stare. A quick glance is all you need).
- Have them split the deck in half, placing the top of the deck on the table.
- Instruct them to take the top card of the deck in their hands, look at it and memorize it.
- Then, have them put their card on top of the pile on the table and place the rest of the cards back on top.
- Pick up the deck of cards and pretend to “read their mind.”
- Begin dealing cards face up, pausing every now and then to seem like you’re struggling to find the card.
- Once you reach the key card you memorized before (Ace of Spades), you know the next card is their selected card (Two of Diamonds in this example).
- Build up some suspense and dramatically reveal that you have found their card.
Magical Colors Card Trick
- Before you begin, separate all the cards from the deck into two piles. One with all the red cards and one with all the black cards.
- Reassemble the deck and place the red cards on top.
- Fan out the top section of the deck (the red cards) and instruct an audience member to pick a card and memorize it.
- After your spectator chooses a card, close the fan and then re-fan them again—this time fanning the bottom half of the deck (where the black cards are).
- Have them reinsert their playing card in this section.
- Split the deck in the middle and place the bottom half on the top to show you’re “shuffling” the cards.
- Fan through the cards facing you and look for the only red card sandwiched between two black cards (Jack of Diamonds in this example).
- Pull this card out face down and slowly reveal it to be their selected card.
The Counting Cards Mind Reading Trick
- Have your spectators shuffle the cards
- Fan through the playing cards face-up to show they are fairly shuffled, memorizing the top card as you do.
- Have them select a number between 1-10
- Whatever number they chose, instruct them to deal that amount of cards to the table like they were playing a card game.
- Here’s the sneaky part though. While you’re giving these instructions, actually deal the cards to the table.
- So, if they choose 6. Deal 6 cards down to the table. Then, place these dealt cards back on top of the deck. This secretly places the top card you memorized in the 6th position.
- Hand the deck to them and have them count down to the number they chose and memorize the card they land on (secretly the card you already know).
- Instruct them to put their card back in the deck and shuffle it.
- Now you can reveal their card in a magical way, either pretending to read their mind or miraculously finding it in the deck.
Crazy Teleporting Playing Card Trick
- You’ll need two matching decks of cards for this card trick and a little bit of tape.
- Take your favorite playing card out of both decks of cards (we’ll use the Two of Hearts).
- Place one of the duplicate cards in an envelope and seal it.
- Then, if you have double-sided tape, take a very small piece and place it on the center of the face of the other Two of Hearts
- If you don’t have double-sided tape, you can make a small loop of tape and place it on the back of the card at the top of the deck of cards you plan to use for the trick.
- Place the Two of Hearts on top of this deck.
- When you’re ready to begin, bring out the deck of cards and casually place the envelope on the table.
- While explaining your ability to make objects teleport, separate the Two of Hearts from the top card. Your talking will help cover the little bit of sound the tape might make.
- Show the Two of Hearts to your audience. (If you’re using looped tape, tilt the top of the deck toward you so nobody can see it).
- Place the Two of Hearts back on top of the deck and give a little squeeze to make sure the tape sticks.
- Cut the deck and supposedly lose the Two of Hearts in the middle of the deck.
- Make a magical gesture and fan through the deck face up to show that the Two of Hearts has vanished (it won’t be seen since it’s stuck to the back of another card).
- Have another member of the audience open the envelope to see the Two of Hearts has magically transported.
