🖍️ The Crayon Mind Reader

The Crayon Mind Reader for kids: the whole trick

You stand with your back to your friend and hold your hands behind you. They put any crayon from the box into your hands, and you turn round with it still hidden behind your back. You touch your forehead, think hard, and say the colour. It's a level 1 apprentice trick for ages 5 to 9 (grades K–3rd), takes 5 minutes to learn, and needs one thing you already have. Flick, the shop's rabbit, reads every step aloud with a picture, so a child can follow it alone.

The secret

Behind your back you scrape a little of the crayon off with a thumbnail. When you touch your forehead to think, you glance at the colour under your nail.

What you need

• A box of crayons

How to do it

1. Put the crayons on the table and turn your back to your friend.
2. Hold your hands behind you and say: put any crayon in my hands, and hide the box.
3. Turn round to face them, with the crayon still behind your back.
4. Behind your back, secretly scrape a little of the crayon with your thumbnail.
5. Bring that hand round to your forehead, as if you're thinking, and peek at your nail.
6. Say slowly: I'm seeing… pink! Then show the crayon.

Magic words to say

“Every colour makes a different feeling in your fingers. Warm ones tingle. Cold ones prickle. This one is… tingling… it's pink!”

Pro tips

• Use crayons that are very different: red, blue, green, yellow. Two blues are too hard to tell apart.
• Act it out. Rub your forehead, frown, change your mind once. The thinking is the show.
• Wipe your thumbnail between goes so the old colour doesn't fool you.

If something goes wrong

If you can't see the colour, say "it's a warm colour" and look again while they nod. A second peek is fine when you're busy thinking.

Safety notes

• Needs a helper.
• No fire, no flames and nothing sharp in a child's hand anywhere in the Magic Shop. Nothing ever goes in a mouth, a nose or an ear.

What kind of trick is this?

🔮 Prediction. You knew all along, or you read their mind. Almost every trick ever invented is one of eight kinds, and knowing which one you're watching is how magicians work out how a new trick is done.

The skill it teaches: Working with helpers. A helper should walk away feeling brilliant. Perform it and it counts towards the Showstopper badge.

Questions about the crayon mind reader

How do magicians read minds?

They don't hear your thoughts. Mind-reading tricks use maths that always lands on the same answer, a secret peek, or a code agreed with a partner beforehand. Magicians who do mind tricks are called mentalists.

What's the best magic trick for beginners?

Pick one that works by itself, so all your attention can go on performing instead of on your hands. Magicians call those self-working tricks. The Magic Mind Reader card trick and the number tricks work every time if you follow the steps.

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