Hello all,

The story is that I'll be going to Vietnam for some community involvment stuff with the children (6-16yo) over there and from what I heard from my Vietnamese friend, people don't know much about magic. After err, giving my friends a few frights with some of the very few tricks I know, I was suddenly given a short slot to perform.

I was rather hesistant initially, but if you had seen the kids' shelters (VERY small) and the kids (20 of them) living in them like me on a recce trip there, you'd want to put a smile on their faces too. Magic is, hopefully, one way I could do so.

The problem is, I only have 2 months of experience playing with cards, cups and balls and other props. Could anyone here suggest which easier tricks with cards I could practise and perform in about one month with relative confidence?

Come for the meeting on Fri if you can make it. Jimmy who is giving the talk then has 11 years of experience in magic and has been doing childrens' show for 7 years or so. I believe strongly that sponge balls and/or rabbits for the kids would be much better than cards by the way :)

Hmmm I was thinking of joining you guys on Friday, but I'm having a lot of commitments during the hols, so I can't make it this week. I really hope to learn a lot more from all the really experienced guys out there. I guess I'll just stay tuned for any more meetings. Thanks very much Markiebeth :)

Hey... just curious... when are you going to Vietnam?

if you got the basic in misdirection i suggest paper ball OTH

ballon scuptulring would be even nicer.

You wanna do card magic for children? Is that a good idea?

If you want an easy card trick, I'd suggest "Red Hot Mama".

Otherwise, magic colouring book, self working, no sleights needed. kids love it.
Sponge balls.
Paddle trick, but produce real coins and maybe give the coins away later

TT magic.

Have fun performing. :)

Hey Pseudo, I'll be leaving at start of July :)

Hmmm I do know a little in balloon sculpting, but not enough to perform anything decent in front of them.

As for card tricks, I kind of expected that they might not really know what I'm doing at all. But there are a few 16 year old kids there, so I'm basically catering to an audience with a large age range.

Been trying to practise my misdirection and stuff, but sometimes I do get a little nervous (feedback from my friends) and oops, mistakes do occur. But thanks for your help guys.

is the event over oredy?
a review on the event?

if it's not over yet, lsten to rainking and get magic colouring book. easy, visual.

Nope it's not over yet, still preparing for it in July. I really can't wait to go over haha. I'll add my review on the small event once I come back, but reviewing on my own event seems kind of weird, hmmm.

Yup magic colouring book, I just got it from my friend. But of course, I have to think about the tricks for the older children...

TT magic is suitable for any age. Since you're afraid they might not "get" your magic (but they are usually much smarter than we think so don't be surprised), visual tricks would be best.

With TT and a bit of flash paper, I think their jaws would be dropping in no time. Check out Darwin's series of (expensive) DVDs on TT magic for ideas, or just pick up a cheap booklet like "101 tricks with a TT" etc.

On a separate note, you might want to consider doing more than just a magic "show". The best way to make children smile and immediately bond with them is to interact with them. Even just simple teasing with them will get a hoard of them to follow you around like you're a star. This is from experience working with kids in general, and not specifically with magic. The thing to keep in mind is to not be self-consicous and indulge in "childish" behaviour with them. Take your cue from them and imitate/copy/join in their activities or games and soon you'll be their "big friend" rather than some dude from Singapore who happens to be able to turn two Aces into Kings.

That's for the young, young kids. The older ones, around 14-16 are more or less looking for role models. So clowning around probably won't help, but going up to them, nudging them with an elbow, cocking an eyebrow, then do a French drop and produce the coin from behind their ear would likely earn you a cult following. Confidence is the key, but if you screw up or whatever, just be cool enough to laugh it off with them. Then you show one or two of them how to do the trick and soon they'll be entertaining themselves (and others) with it. Just know that they'll probably come back to you asking you to teach them more, so be prepared.

Yea working with kids is really fun because they have so much creativity that just need a little boost to unleash. And though some may be a little shy at first, so long as you're sincere and let them come to you, you can be fast friends with them. Then even if you do something really simple like the make the pen disappear by sticking it up your ear, they'll love you for it.

Use your magic as a means to bond with them, get to know them better, make friends with them rather than thinking your magic is the end result. I've managed to make a bunch of 20 kids smile and brighten up their afternoon with no more than a piece of paper, a pen, and lots of interaction.

OK I'll shut up now. :off:

That was a good post Maddened ^_^

Well s_bigmac, the only advice I can think of is really to stay away from cards. Do more visual things, like instant snow, snowstorm production, change bags involving silks with a funny breakaway wand, magic coloring books (pages blank, outlines appear and bam- colors are here!) and some stage stuff for kids that involves streamers, colorful stuff and more.

IT is visual but I'm not too sure about flash paper... not very good to do anything with fire infront of the kids, they may want to try copying what you do after and may very well hurt themselves... so, you may want to save flash paper for another time ;)

For close up, rubberbands, TTs and sponge balls/ rabbits, paddle sticks, coins and rope, etc. would be nice :) Your Vietnam trip sounds really cool... is this for SMU or church or are you with some charity organisation?

I wish you all the best s_bigmac!!! :lol:

ning

Hey guys, thank you all very much for all the advice and support you have shown me ever since I started this thread. It's amazing how much help and ideas I've received from all your posts. As of now, I'm still practising day and night for my short routines, so hopefully it'll work out. I've also performed some of them in front of my friends and got them to rate my performance, so far so good.

My bag of tricks includes the TT (but very limited ideas), IT, sponge rabbits, coins, ropes, cups & balls and of course, cards and the usual sleights and misdirections. Hopefully I can entertain them for quite some while with just these few stuff.

For card magic, I'd probably be doing for the older kids (around 16y.o)which are actually grouped differently from the younger ones which I just found out. As the younger ones, I think my limited experiences from playing with some kids on the MRT showed that TT is the most amazing thing they would want to see :P Money tricks, particularly those involving bills however, are not really advisable due to the nature of the children.

Maddened, thanks for reminding me what the aim of magic, in my case, truly is. I think the most important thing, as you said, is to be less self-conscious and to just interact with the children as if you were one of them. It's something which I believe a lot of us going for this trip have actually forgotten.

This is actually a overseas community involvement programme started by a group (23 of us) at SMU. The last time I went for the recce trip, I regretted not having much time for them. This time round, we'll be visiting 4 childrens' shelter, where kids there are from broken homes, missing parents in poverty, suffered traumatic experiences etc. Other than buying textbooks, shelves, blackboards and refurbishing their shelters, I really hope that my performances here and there (I'm kind of like a time filler for transitions between events too) will actually make the kids happy, even if it's just that fleeting few seconds.

It's really painful when you step into a shelter and see these kids squeezing into a place which has the floor area of my room (I live in a HDB flat). Words won't be able to describe how I felt back then, but I am definitely going to do something for them.

Once again, thanks for all the well-wishes. I'll do up a nice report for you guys once I get back. Meanwhile, it's time to practise till D-day (4th July)! :lol:

This is a very interesting thing that you are doing bigmac....which part of vietnam are you going to?

Do take some pics of you performing and your trip yah? I'm setting up a blog space for SMC soon and if you want, you can write a photo blog of the magic (and other) aspect of your trip.

It would certainly be a great read for those of us who are hobbyists.

Read this thread if you haven't already done so :) It'll help you some...

Hey guys!

Yup I'm currently now in Vietnam and after 2 days of activities with 2 different shelters, I've lost approximately SGD$20 worth of props, 2 decks of cards all ripped up into pieces and sore shoulders as I carried quite a lot of the boys. But of course, it was worth it, though the boys were really ridiculous hecklers. Will have more to report when I have the time!

Mac, from a hot and stuffy Internet cafe in Vietnam.