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Hi Magic Bro and Sister!

My name is dee. Located in Jakarta, Indonesia (umm..not the one that affected by the tsunami).

I’m a teacher, both in preschool and Sunday school. Recently, I was just realized the effectiveness on doing magic as a visual aid of teaching children, especially for grabbing their attention and to let them more absorbing the virtues and values.

Than, I’m starting to learn magic now. I’m totally just a beginner. So far...i was just reading a local magic introduciton book (authored by the local senior magician). And also learn and practicing some free tricks from the internet (I’ve got only less than 10 tricks, rite now).

My special interest is on Childrens Magic (Gospel magic included) and Ventriloquism. Well...i think i’m not gonna do magic for an entertain performance but more to become a wonderful visual teaching aid. This is my ultimate goal. But seems like I was just so far away from it. I’ve got no basic skill in magic yet. Helpful hands from other member are absolutely needed in my magical journey.

My questions:
1. Where should I start in order to be a better “magic” teacher?
(I meant...being a teacher, who put magic as a one of his teaching visual aid)

2. Should I master all the basic skills of magic (improve my sleight of hands, etc) regarding my teacher proffesion or should I explore the whole in deep just like the entertainer pro leaner?

3. As we have many genre of magic, where children, gospel, & ventriloquism are joined? Are they standing on their own or else? Especially on children’s what are people usually do as a routines?

4. Are Books and DVD’s are the best source in learning magic tricks for a beginner? Or I’d better just take a course from expert, which is expensive…absolutely! Please share me your early years of magic experience….

5. Anyway…about books or videos, which one are good or even best for my special interest on children’s magic and ventriloquism as a beginner? With the less of my budget, I would be happy and welcome if used books, videos, or items related are offered to me?

6. Last...how about listing the useful links and freebies tricks on the net could I get. Coz these are truly my first step into magic.

Comments, Ideas, Sharing, Suggestion, and might be Tips and Tricks are definitely welcome……

Magically thanks,
dee

Hi and welcome

I guess there will probably be a variety of opinions with regard to where to start.
For what you are doing I would suggest you get hold of the following books by Karl Fulves:
- Self working rope magic
- Self working handkerchief magic
- Self working table magic

Most of the stuff in these books is relatively easy to do, rely on props that you can find easily and inexpensively, and it should give you enough to put together a kid's show. Seeing as you're using magic as a teacher - it should be more than enough to start with.
I would recommend learning a bit of sleight of hand - William Tarr's book "Now you see it, Now you don't" is well illustrated and easy to learn from.

Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic is also an excellent start. It covers pretty much everything, as well has ways you can make props yourself.

Ventriloquism Made Easy by Kolby King is the only book on vent that I have - so it's all I can recommend. It's quite good in teaching you the basics, but I would have liked more examples of scripting a rouitne.

Also - have a look through the review index:
http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic1999.php

As for links on the internet - the best I can advise is to hang around forums like this one, as well as those that that focus on children's magic.
A good place for advice is http://www.themagiccafe.com.
Look under "The Little Darlings". There's a lot of kid's magicians there and there is some good advice (and some not so good advice).

Hope this helps

I seem to recall that we used to sell a book called 'performing magic in schools' at Studio 9 when I was there but I can't remember the author's name. I am sure it will crop up if you do a search for it on the net.

I am not sure how useful this will be as it probably doesn't concentrate on magic as a teaching aid but it might be of some help.

I've often used magic as part of a training course that I've run or part of a presentation that I've given and if I can give some advice that would be helpful then it would be:

1. select your trick to try and fit in with the subject that you're teaching. Example may be that a particular card trick could be changed to fit in with a history lesson. Pictures may fit pirates, royalty storylines whilst numbered cards could be used for maths etc.
2. I select easy to perform tricks rather than using something that's over complicated for a couple of reasons. First, it's hard trying to concentrate on the trick as well as your teaching or presentation and secondly, you don't want people to forget the point that your making or teaching by concentrating too much on the magic instead of the lesson. The point is that the magic is used to illustrate the teaching and not the other way around.
3. Packet tricks or self working tricks I find are particularly suited to this situation.
4. I agree very much with Taneous in that sleight of hand would be a major asset in these situations.

Hope that this helps.

nickj wrote:I seem to recall that we used to sell a book called 'performing magic in schools' at Studio 9 when I was there but I can't remember the author's name. I am sure it will crop up if you do a search for it on the net.
I am not sure how useful this will be as it probably doesn't concentrate on magic as a teaching aid but it might be of some help.

I've try to search based on that title, but i still can't find any. Might be coz i dunno where to find. Something like Amazon, E-bay, or else? Well... u might wanna show me more information on it. Coz in sounds a worthed book for me. Thanks nick.

taneous wrote:Hi and welcome

Karl Fulves:
- Self working rope magic
- Self working handkerchief magic
- Self working table magic

William Tarr's book "Now you see it, Now you don't"
Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic
Ventriloquism Made Easy by Kolby King

Thanks for the clear information. I've joined the cafe. What are you, Taneous? A book collector or something? Coz sounds like u know a lot.

The rope, handkerchief, table, sleight are gonna be the best starting for me! Where and how can i got those books? Coz of many fraud, i think most of the online shop has put my country on the black list (included amazon/ ebay...i guess).

Regarding the cost should i take on shippment to my place, i think I'm gonna prefer some usedbook. Where could i get bank of information about Usedbook/stuffs sales. Or u might wanna sell yours?

REGARDS,
dee

dat8962 wrote:I've often used magic as part of a training course that I've run or part of a presentation that I've given and if I can give some advice that would be helpful then it would be:

1. select your trick to try and fit in with the subject that you're teaching. Example may be that a particular card trick could be changed to fit in with a history lesson. Pictures may fit pirates, royalty storylines whilst numbered cards could be used for maths etc.
2. I select easy to perform tricks rather than using something that's over complicated for a couple of reasons. First, it's hard trying to concentrate on the trick as well as your teaching or presentation and secondly, you The point is that the magic is used to illustrate the teaching and not the other way around.
Hope that this helps.

Thanks dat8962, I'm fully agree w/ you on these points. "Selecting easy to perform tricks so people don't forget the point that I'm making or teaching by concentrating too much on the magic instead of the lesson."

"The easy" What are they for examples? U meant like an impromptu & close up: rope, handkerchief, cards, balls, and coins? I think I'm gonna thru this more than others....

Wow..need learn a lot from you dat!

What are you, Taneous? A book collector or something?

I guess you could call me a book collector - along with most magicians on this forum
Be warned - this magic is addictive..
Those are the books I started with and a lot of my kid's show is based on stuff I learnt from them. I think you can probably get every one of those from Amazon. I don't know whether they ship to your country or not.
You probably know already - but there are a lot of online magic shops. I use Hank Lee's (http://www.hanklee.org) mostly, but there are a lot of others.

It's perhaps difficult to recommend tricks to people as one person's idea of something great is another's idea of........................

I would recommend that you spend time looking through many of the recommended online magic shops, read reviews etc. and watch the video's where they are provided. You should get a feel for the things that you like, what will fit in well with your teaching and how difficult the trick is to perform. Most, if not all magic sites will use a similar rating of 1 to 5 for difficulty with 1 being self working and virtually fool proof up to 5 being advanced.

Back when I was a little boy, my dad bought me a couple of self working magic gimmicks (and he bought them in Indonesia, as we lived there before). One of them being a bamboo with a string through it (and the effect is that even if you cut the string into two, the string is still attached) and another one is a picture card that if you look at it closely and blink a couple of times, the picture will reverse or something. So my advice is for you to go to local magic shops (because really, online ordering from Indonesia will be much more expensive compared to you buying it from local shops). They sell lots of gimmicks. A good site to start is http://www.davidsmagic.com they sell an array of gimmicks, including those used for children magic.

The thing with books is that they are books, which means it will require you to learn sleights and stuff (and if the books don't require you, your curiousity will ), or you'll end up buying a couple of gimmicks anyway. Depending on the age of your pupils, you may also want to remember to show them tricks that would relate to their age and trends.

Hope that helps!

doktokaro wrote:Back when I was a little boy, my dad bought me a couple of self working magic gimmicks (and he bought them in Indonesia, as we lived there before).

INTERMEZZO: So you lived in Indonesia. I'm in Jakarta. Where were you? I guess u still remember the Indonesian language , don't u? Happy to meet you here, bro!

doktokaro wrote:So my advice is for you to go to local magic shops (because really, online ordering from Indonesia will be much more expensive compared to you buying it from local shops). They sell lots of gimmicks. A good site to start is http://www.davidsmagic.com they sell an array of gimmicks, including those used for children magic.

I know several (4-5) local magic store here! Ya...it's true they sell a lot of gimmick but Crazy they don't sell even a magic book. Well they have little booklet, about 3 pcs..i guess! They sell lot of VCD also n as u might knew already...all are pirate stuffs.

doktokaro wrote:The thing with books is that they are books, which means it will require you to learn sleights and stuff (and if the books don't require you, your curiousity will ), or you'll end up buying a couple of gimmicks anyway. Depending on the age of your pupils, you may also want to remember to show them tricks that would relate to their age and trends. Hope that helps!

My kids are about 3-8 years. So you means, since i'll end up w/ those gimmick to buy, I don't have to buy a starter/beginner book to guide me? and just count on the small notes of instruction (included) how to play the gimmick?

May i have ur email dok, please give me a PM.

Euh well, that isn't what I'm trying to imply. What I meant is that I have a book for magic begginers and I have this Card Tricks Encyclopedia. Unfortunately, I bought the latter first, so as you probably guess I was confused with the lingos and all hahahahaha. Good thing is that I own that begginers book (I don't recall the title) and it really helped me to get the basic and learn easy card sleights. But ya know, with that book that's just as far as I could go.

I guess it all depends to how much you want to take it , I really love magic, and I want to keep on going. So it depends on how much you want to use it.

As far as gimmicks go, many gimmicks are self working, which means no sleight of hands whatsoever is needed (just like the two I was talking about earlier). But there are also gimmicks that require lots of practice. Good example would be Deddy Cobuzier (you should know him if you're from Indonesia ). Most of his acts on TV are done with gimmicks.

So uhmm, I think I'm rambling hahahahah anyways, I think you should also get the basic magic books or videos, as it will really help you along the way. And another important thing to learn is the presentation of magic itself.

I don't have a library of great magic books, but I suppose other more experienced members (myself is still a beginner hehehhe) could help you on this one?

I'll PM you my email address.