The most popular activity at Horten’s Miraculous Mechanisms Backyard Book Club meeting was definitely the magic show and lesson. The kids were impressed with my meager magic skills and loved learning all the tricks themselves!
There are tons of great resources for learning magic tricks online, but we started with the very basics. We learned classic tricks like The Jumping Rubber Band, The Necklace, The Jumping Paper Clips, The Rubber Pencil, The Magnetic Pencil, and a couple of card tricks from my youth (similar to the ones found here.)
After the magic show, I passed out a magic kit to each book clubber. The kits contained a deck of cards, paper clips, pencil, string, beads, and a dollar bill–everything they’d need to do all the tricks from the magic show! I demonstrated each trick for the kids in super-slow motion with detailed instructions. Then we had practice time and the kids helped each other work on the tricks.
I had many reports from parents afterward about kids enthusiastically performing magic shows for their families, which totally made my day. 🙂