The words pick a card must have been uttered a thousand times last weekend at the Marriott in Fort Collins as a few hundred magicians gathered to advance their craft. The 15th Annual Magic in the Rockies conference was a huge success by all accounts… and I had a blast. I’ve written about my involvement with magic in the past and even did the proud Dad thing by showing video of my kids performing their first magic routines on stage. I grew up in a family of magicians, so I’ve been to dozens and dozens of magicians conventions. I always come away from these experiences excited about the art and hopeful that young people will continue to show interest. The video below will give you a brief glimpse of what happened for three solid days at Magic in the Rockies.
Okay, it’s not science… but I’m so proud that I just had to share it. Mark and Scott are our twin 5 year old boys who have both taken a liking to magic. It probably doesn’t hurt to see their brother Jack (who is now 8 years old) performing his magic tricks on stage. I was recently invited to be a featured speaker at the SPLASH Summer Conference presented by Frog Street Press in Dallas, Texas. Mark and Scott performed this trick on stage in front of almost 1,700 teachers and they had a ball. The boys couldn’t understand why everyone was getting up to leave at the end of their trick. You’ll see why.
Jack is 8 years old and likes to perform (he must get that from his Mom). Three years ago, the owners of Frog Street Press invited Jack to accompany me to their amazing summer conference for teachers called SPLASH. I helped Jack perform his first magic trick in front of a large audience (about 1,200 teachers) and that’s all it took. The Frog Street Press people were kind enough to invite us back this July, and Jack was ready to hit center stage. Jack’s routine is an original twist on a classic magic trick you might have seen performed by another magician using pom-pom balls. The audience in this video consisted of almost 1,700 early childhood educators (primarily pre-K through 2nd grade). Here’s Jack…
A teacher can be an amazing teacher. In science workshops and seminars, I teach teachers how to do magic. I grew up in a family of professional magicians, but my 13 years in the classroom didn’t involve a lot of magic other than science magic, like water floating upside down in a glass, or a ping pong ball floating on a stream of air. Teachers are aware of how important it is to teach content. Sometimes they need to stop for a moment and learn how to be a presenter of science. I teach you how to put the coin in your hand and make it disappear. It’s a technique used by magicians to grab our attention. It excites us. Makes us want to know how it works. And it can be worked into the Five E’s: it excites the kids, makes them want to explore, engages them in learning and experiment in the process and, finally, evaluates their learning. And it can be as simple as a little experiment with the vanishing coin. Listen to my podcast to hear how teachers can do magic in the classroom (File size is 0.8 MB) (Show length 3 minutes 20 seconds)
