Tag Archives: instructions

Incredible Illusions

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incredible illusionsBehold the mystery…the wonder…the spectacle…of your very own mini magic show!

magic tricksThis project was the culminating event at To Be Continued, our weekly story time for 6 to 8-year-olds. Every week, we read from a chapter book and celebrate the the end of the entire book with a project and/or activity.

We read Horten’s Incredible Illusions by Lissa Evans (the sequel to Horten’s Mechanical Mechanisms (Sterling Children’s Books, 2012)). Young Stuart Horten moves to the town of Beeton and expects to be thoroughly bored. However, he soon discovers that he is part of a magical legacy left by his Great Uncle Tony, who was a stage magician and illusionist. In the first book, Stuart and his friend April solve a series of complicated clues and find Uncle Tony’s secret workshop. In the sequel, the friends again embark on a journey. This time, they’re searching for Great Uncle Tony’s will, which bequeths the contents of his workshop to whoever finds the document first. Clues are hidden in each of his magical stage illusions, but…the magical worlds inside the illusions are real and in some cases, dangerous. And Stuart and April aren’t the only one interested in getting their hands on those tricks.

We definitely needed some incredible illusions to celebrate the conclusion of these awesome books. I designed these individual mini magic shows to be easy enough for 6-year-olds to do, but intriguing enough for 8-year-olds. After consulting a number of children’s magic books, I found Amazing Magic Tricks: Beginner Level by Norm Barnhart (Edge Books, 2008) to be the most useful. The 4 tricks described in this post are from this book.

You’ll need:

  • 1 memory box (more about this below)
  • A 10.5″ piece of PVC pipe (05.” in diameter)
  • A selection of color masking tape
  • 1 paper cup
  • 1 paper (or fabric) flower
  • 1 empty seed packet (or small envelope simply marked “Magic Seeds”)
  • A 9″ x 12″ piece of felt (I used the glitter variety)
  • A hat rabbit carrot template printed on 8.5″ x 11″ card stock
  • 1 Styrofoam coffee cup
  • A selection of foil star stickers
  • 2 playing cards
  • A 1″ foam paintbrush (or regular paintbrush)
  • Scissors and tape for construction

You’ll need a box with a lid to store your tricks and shield your hands from the audience as you prepare your tricks. A memory box is perfect for this. I purchased mine at Michaels Craft store. I went with black, but they come in all sorts of colors and patterns.

memory boxDecorate the lid of your box however you like (I found some self-adhesive glitter foam stars in the clearance section at the craft store) then slide the lid onto the box like so. This creates a “screen” and a “backstage” area to prep your tricks.

magic boxNext, wrap color masking tape around the PVC pipe. Your magic wand is ready!

wandTRICK #1: HIDDEN FLOWER

The most important thing about this trick is making sure the flower is small enough to hide in your fist. I purchased 1.25″ paper flowers for the kids (scored on discount from the scrap booking section of the craft store).

flowerBehind your box’s screen, grab the flower in your fist. Then use the same hand to hold the paper cup with your fingers.

flower trick 1To perform the trick, show the audience that your cup is empty. Then say “Oh no! It’s empty. Well, good thing I have some stupendous magic seeds!” Pick up the empty seed packet and pretend to pour seeds into the cup.

flower trick 2Wave the wand around muttering magical incantations. While the audience is distracted by the wand, open your fingers and drop the flower into the cup. Shout “Ta da!” and show them that a flower has magically appeared!

flower trick 3TRICK #2: FIND THE RABBIT

Print the hat, rabbit, carrot template. Fold and tear the strip in 2 places, like your see below. It’s really important that your TEAR the strip. Don’t cut it with scissors!

rabbit trickTo perform the trick, hold up the 3 image cards and say “You see a hat, a rabbit, and some carrots, but with my amazing magical skills, I will pull the rabbit from under this cloth every time!” Turn your back and have an audience member arrange the 3 image cards on the table and cover them with felt.

rabbit trick 2Reach underneath the felt and feel the edges of the image cards with your fingers.

rabbit trick 3The rabbit will be the only image card with two torn edges. Remove it from under the cloth with a flourish! Repeat with a difference audience member. Astounding!

rabbit trick 4TRICK #3: BALANCING CUP

First, decorate a Styrofoam cup with foil star stickers. Next, cut a playing card in half, lengthwise. Tape one half of the cut playing card to the back of another card. The half of the playing card should “hinge” outward like so

cup trick 1To perform the trick, flatten the hinge to the card and hold it up to your audience, keeping the taped side facing your body. Invite an audience member to come forward and try to balance the Styrofoam cup on top of the card. Then say “You see it is impossible. But I will now use magic to make the impossible, possible!”

While you’re talking, sneak a finger up the card and open the hinge on the back, forming an area for the cup to balance. From the side, it looks like this:

cup trick 2But from the front, it looks like the cup is now balancing on the card!

cup trick 3TRICK #4: MAGIC GLUE

To perform this trick, tell the audience that you have magic glue. Hold up a paintbrush and Invite an audience member to come up and “paint” your hand with the magical glue. For my version of the trick, we used 1″ foam paintbrushes I had left over from another program.

wand trick 1Now hold the wand in your “glued” hand. Say “Observe my stupendous magical glue!” Extend your arm across your body and out to your side, still grasping the wand. Next, wrap your free hand around the wrist of your wand hand. Slowly and dramatically, lift each finger from the wand until you no longer appear to be holding it.

wand trick 2But you are holding it of course. Because when you grasp your wrist, you sneak a finger behind your wand hand and hold the wand like this:

wand trick 3Now have the audience clap once to have the wand “detach” from the magic glue. Carefully lift your finger to release the wand, and let it fall dramatically to the floor. Take a big bow.

The kids absolutely loved this project. I performed the whole show first, and then I deconstructed all the tricks and each kid made his/her own set. If, by the way, you’d like to see the awesome mechanisms we made after reading Horten’s Miraculous Mechanisms (the first book in this set), click here.

In May 2015, I interviewed Lissa Evans about her fantastic books. If you’d like to hear it, click here!

Running with the Royals

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running with the royalsA princess or prince to pal around with? Check! Gleaming castle with banners flying? Check! Bejeweled crown to wear upon thy head?

crownCheck! You’re ready to run with the royals!

We read Princess Me, written by Karma Wilson and illustrated by Christa Unzner (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2007). This sweet rhyming book describes all the qualities of “Princess Me,” a kind, gentle, mannerly, and just princess who benevolently reigns over her land of toys and dolls. The twist comes at the end, after the princess is tucked into bed with a kiss from the king and queen. That’s when we learn that Princess Me is, in fact, Princess You!

You’ll need:

First, use the box cutter to cut a drawbridge out of the front of the box. Make sure, however, that the door’s “hinge” remains attached to the bottom of the box.

drawbridge step 1Next, hot glue a rectangle of tagboard to the outside of the door.

drawbridge step 2The tagboard will give the drawbridge some some heft and weight as it opens and shuts.

drawbridge step 3Use scissors to cut the paper towel tube “towers” to the desired height for your castle  (my tubes were 7″ tall). Now decorate the tubes and your castle with metallic paper, construction paper, aluminum foil, mirror board, foil seals – whatever you like! When you’re finished decorating, hot glue the towers to the sides of the castle.

Wrap a piece of patterned paper around the top of each coffee stirrer, then secure with glue or tape. Trim one edge to create a banner-style flag.

bannersIf you’re looking for an easier flag to assemble, use color masking tape to make a banner flag (as seen from this mini circus tent project).

circus tent flagTo make “turrets” for your castle towers, snip the top off a cone water cup like so:

flag stepsThen drop the flag’s pole into the top of the cup. Center it, then wrap it with tape to attach it to the cone cup. Repeat with the other cup and flag.

taped flagpoleHot glue the turrets to the tops of the castle towers. Ta da! Your castle is complete!

castleTo make your princess or prince, wrap the top of a toilet paper tube with multicultural construction paper, then use markers to draw a face. Wrap the remainder of the tube with a piece of patterned paper and add a fancy collar if you like. Attach construction paper hair and a gold poster board crown. This project definitely cried out for gemstones, which we attached to the crown (and castle) with hot glue.

princessNow it’s time for your crown! Cut a crown pattern out of a large rectangle of gold poster board, wrap around your head, remove, then staple. Decorate your crown with the remaining art supplies on the table. We encouraged kids to have their crowns somewhat match their tube counterparts. Finished!

crown and friendNeed a little entertainment at your castle? Perhaps this post would be of some assistance!

Little Big Top

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little big topThe circus is coming to town! See the juggler! Chuckle at the clown! Gasp at the amazing acrobat! But you’ll need some very tiny tickets, because this circus…is for mice.

We read The Secret Circus by Johanna Wright (Roaring Brook Press, 2009). Somewhere in the city of Paris, there is a secret circus. Only the mice know how to get there and enjoy its many splendors. But we’ll give you a hint: check under the carrousel in a park by the Eiffel Tower. But keep it a secret!

You’ll need:

  • A large rectangle of white poster board (approximately 11″ x 25.5″)
  • A box cutter
  • 1 paper towel tube
  • A selection of color masking tape
  • 2 pipe cleaners
  • 1 wooden dowel
  • A 8.5″ x 14″ tagboard base (optional)
  • 4 toilet paper tubes
  • 2 rectangles of white construction paper (approximately 4.5″ x 6″)
  • 2 rectangles of grey construction paper (approximately 4.5″ x 6″)
  • Extra white and grey construction paper for mouse ears and tails
  • A selection of patterned paper
  • 1 strip of white construction paper for ringmaster pants (approximately 1.25″ x 6″)
  • 1 strip of red construction paper for ringmaster jacket (approximately 1.5″ x 6″)
  • 1 rectangle of black construction paper for ringmaster hat (1.5″ x 2″)
  • A 5″ piece of craft tie for ringmaster bow tie
  • 2 small feathers
  • A circle of white card stock (2″ in diameter)
  • 3 mini pom-poms (mine were 0.5″)
  • Markers for decorating
  • Scissors, tape, hole punch for construction
  • Hot glue

First, we’ll raise the tent. We designed the tent to be easy to collapse and carry home. We tried the tent set up on a hard tabletop and carpeted floor. It was pretty sturdy on both surfaces!

Use markers to decorate your large rectangle of white poster board tent on both sides (I left the example tent  undecorated for the steps below). Remember – one side of the paper is your exterior (stripes are always nice), and one side is the interior (you can draw audience members if you like!).

Lay the poster board on the table in front of you. Fold it in half like a book, then unfold it.

tent step 1Take the right end of the tent and fold it towards the center line. The fold should begin 5″ from the center line. Repeat with the left side of the tent. It should now look like this:

tent step 2Flip the poster board over. Use the box cutter to make two, 0.25″ slits on either side of the center line, right in the center of the poster board tent.

tent step 3Pick the tent off the table and gently roll the areas between the folds inwards.

tent step 4This will give your creation that “droopy circus tent” look.

undecorated tentNow for the tent pole. Wrap a paper towel tube in color masking tape, and punch four holes in the sides of the tube, near the top. Thread a pipe cleaner through one set of holes:

tent pole step 1Fold the ends of the pipe cleaner upwards. Push the ends of the pipe cleaner up through the slits at the top of your tent.

tent pole step 2Twist the ends of the pipe cleaner together tightly to create a flag pole.  Wrap a piece of color masking tape around the top of the pole, then trim the masking tape with scissors to create a banner flag.

tent flag stepsLastly, inset a wooden dowel through the remaining pair of holes on the paper towel tube (your acrobat will swing from this “trapeze” later).

tent dowelYour tent is finished! If you’d like, you can add a tagboard floor, but it’s totally optional. We didn’t attach the tagboard floor to the tent, opting instead to leave it loose so the tent would be more portable and collapsible.

tent floorNow for the performers! We have an acrobat, a juggler, a ringmaster, and a clown!

circus troupeBegin by wrapping 4 toilet paper tubes with white and grey construction paper (we made 2 white mice and 2 grey mice). Make ears out of extra pieces of construction paper and tape (or hot glue) them to the tops of the tubes. Once you finish those steps, it’s time for some details!

CLOWN

clownWrap 2 pieces of patterned paper around the tube for a shirt and pants. Use markers to draw a face, and add a curled strip of construction paper for the tail.

JUGGLER

juggler with ballsWrap 1 piece of patterned paper around the middle of the tube. Tape a feather at the top of the tube, behind the ears. Attach tail. Then use the box cutter to make a small slit in the middle of the juggler’s “chest.”

Next, use the hole punch to create a hole in the center of the 2″ card stock circle. Hot glue 3 mini pom-poms “juggling balls” on the circle (if you don’t have pom-poms, you can use markers to draw balls on the circle). I also used markers to add little “motion lines” behind the balls to accentuate that they are in motion.

Insert a brass tack through the hole in the juggling circle, then push it through the slit in the tube. Open the tack’s prongs inside the tube. Spin the circle and the mouse will juggle!

ACROBAT

finished acrobatTo make the acrobat, follow the same steps as the juggler. But instead of cutting a slit in the chest, punch two sets of holes into the top and bottom of the tube like so:

acrobat step 1Thread a pipe cleaner straight through the top set of holes…

acrobat step 2 Then loop the right end of the pipe cleaner through the right hole again.

acrobat threadedBend the pipe cleaner up and hook the very end. This is how the mouse will hang on the trapeze bar.

acrobat handRepeat the above steps on the left arm. To make the legs, follow the same steps as the arms, but simply bend the ends pipe cleaner up to make feet. However, some kids decided to hook the feet so the acrobat could hang upside down as well.

THE RINGMASTER

ringmasterWrap a white construction paper strip around the bottom of the tube for pants, then wrap a red construction paper around the middle for the jacket. Cut a top hat shape out of black construction paper and tape (or hot glue) it to the top of the tube. Attach tail. Use markers to draw a face (don’t forget the mustache!) and details on the jacket. Top the outfit off with a bow tie (we made ours with a craft tie, but if you don’t have any handy, you can use markers).

Your circus is complete! Gather up your troupe of performing mice…

excited about acrobats…and let the greatest little show on earth BEGIN!

ready for the show