How To Do A Fun Magic Trick
Alvin, the amazing flea, magic trick for kids
Step 1: Learn some magic:
You should know that we’re about to learn some magic trick that you can actually do for your friends and family and amaze them.So let me go ahead and show you the trick first and then we’ll go into how to do it and how you can make it up at home yourself and become a magician.Well first what I’d like to do is go ahead and introduce you to a little friend of mine. I actually have a pet flea—Alvin
Step 2: Alvin the flea:
Let him sit right on the end on the inside of the tube. Alvin’s pretty small, but Alvin actually does magic. So, let me show you how he works. We have a large ball. Alvin, what I’d like you to do is catch the ball. Good boy.Alvin, drop the ball. Good boy! Good boy! Isn’t he amazing kids?Catch. Excellent. Drop the ball, Alvin. can you see him inside there? He's very very strong.
Step 3: Alvin unties rope.
This is a heavy ball, but not only does he know how to catch, he can actually untie knots on the rope. You see that knot inside that rope?Alvin what I’d like you to do is catch the rope first and then untie the knot. Ooh, I see the rope jiggling and wiggling inside there, sure enough kids, he has untied the knot in the rope. So, boys and girls at home, let me show you one more time.
Step 4: The horrifying truth.
Come on out my friend Alvin. If you’re sitting at home, you have to admit that is one amazing flea. So, let’s give Alvin our trained magic flea a big round of applause! Ew. Poor Alvin. Alright, let’s teach you how to do it. Kids, actually we never had a magic flea called Alvin. I was teasing and I hope you don’t have a magic flea Alvin at home either. If so you may want to call your vet.
Step 5: The magic tube:
But, what we did is we have our magic tube—all the magic happens inside here and you won’t be able to see this as well at home so we’ll break it down and explain it to you.But, all you’re going to need is a tube. It can be any tube. Now this happens to be a mailing tube. I got this at Postman Plus, but you can also use, as I mentioned before the show you can also use toilet roll.
Step 6: The magic trick:
Especially if you’re younger, though my fingers (my thumbs) are rather large, but if you’re younger you probably have smaller thumbs. So, I’ll teach you how to do this, and then a smaller ball, of course. But the way I do it, is I pretend I have this magic flea Alvin and I place him inside the tube. Well here’s the secret boys and girls. This is a regular tube, it’s a regular mailing tube and you can show it completely empty, but on the back end of the tube is a large, gaping hole. This is your secret, right there—is my thumb is now inside the tube. Can you see that over there? Perfect.
Step 7: Drill hole in tube:
Now, all you do is, if you want to use a large mailing tube, like this, you’ll have to of course have your mom or dad help you and I drilled a hole right inside the tube like that. Now, we never—and if you’re using the toilet tissue roll you can do that and just have mom or dad cut a hole on the back of this tube like so, alrighty.Now you never let the audience see this side of the tube. That’s your secret keep that, keep that to yourself.
Step 8: Use your thumb!
So, never let anyone stand behind you while you’re doing this illusion. So, when you show the magic tube that Alvin’s going to be sitting in—or yeah sitting in. You can show it like that, because if you’ll notice I’m placing my hand right over that gaping hole. Alright? So, you can really handle this tube very, very freely and you can even show it completely empty. Now, when you go to place the ball inside the tube, obviously if I just dropped it in like that it would fall completely out, but for a back view—a magician’s view in this case, you stick your thumb inside the hole and that prevents the ball from falling all the way through. You see that?
Step 9: Get Alvin to untie.
So I’m actually catching the ball with my thumb and then I take my thumb out when I want the ball to drop. Pretty clever, isn’t it? And nobody sees this. Now, of course you don’t stand here like this, and you don’t let anyone stand behind you, but just put your thumb through, catch the ball and pull your thumb out to let the ball drop.And then to have him untie the knot—this is very, very simple. Just have a piece of clothesline something along those lines or if you’re using the smaller tube you may want to go along the lines of a shoelace that might fit through the tube a little easier. But you tie a simple knot like that. Do not tie a double knot. Do not let this go through again, and inside the tube—you just place it inside the tube and what you’re doing is you’re placing your thumb directly inside the centre of this knot.
Step 10: The trick of the knots:
So, let’s pretend I had the tube. I drop it inside like so, pretending that Alvin’s going to untie it. And you wiggle it around a little bit. Make it look like Alvin’s really going doing some work. And you place your thumb inside the hole, pull and it unties the knot. Really, very simple. So, you make it kind of go like that as if Alvin’s really doing some hard work inside there. And then the last part and remember throughout the illusion you can show the tube empty as long as you take your thumb out—I wouldn’t recommend going like this and showing your thumb inside there, but as long as you take your thumb out and put your hand over the hole, you’re able to show the tube completely empty.
Step 11: Finishing gag.
And then at the end we do the little gag, where we take Alvin the flea out, again making sure you put your tube down with the hole facing backwards. And we put Alvin the flea onto our palm and ask for a big round of applause—ew, and have dead flea all over your hand.So, that is your illusion for this week. I hope you enjoyed that.
