Magic Shop

Grown-ups

🪽 The Floating Pencil

Ooh, a good one. Here's what they'll see.

What your audience sees

You hold out a fist with a pencil standing up inside it. You open your fingers one at a time, and the pencil stays stuck to your hand, floating. Then you grab it and hand it over.

  • 🌟 Level 1: Apprentice
  • ⏱ 5 minutes to learn
  • ✏️ Everyday
  • 🎒 Ages 5+

Works by itself, or one simple move. It works the first try.

What you need

The secret

All tricks

Questions about this

How do magicians make things float?

On a big stage, floating uses hidden supports, careful lighting and angles that stop you seeing what's holding the weight. Close up, it's usually a finger or a thumb you can't see from the front. That's why a floating trick works from one direction and gives itself away from the side.

What is misdirection?

Misdirection is deciding where people look. If you look at your right hand, your audience looks there too, and your left hand can do the secret. A question or a joke at the right moment moves attention just as well as a big gesture.

More in Ask the Magician.

The Floating Pencil Trick for kids: the whole trick

You hold out a fist with a pencil standing up inside it. You open your fingers one at a time, and the pencil stays stuck to your hand, floating. Then you grab it and hand it over. 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

Your other hand is holding your wrist to steady it, and its pointer finger has quietly stretched up behind your fist to hold the pencil in place.

What you need

  • A wooden pencil

How to do it

  1. Make a fist with your left hand, knuckles towards your audience, palm towards you.
  2. Stand the pencil up inside your fist so the top sticks out.
  3. Take hold of your left wrist with your right hand, to keep it steady.
  4. Secretly stretch your right pointer finger up behind your fist and hold the pencil there.
  5. Open your left fingers slowly, one at a time. The pencil stays put.
  6. Wiggle your left fingers, then close them, drop your right hand, and hand the pencil out.

Magic words to say

“Some pencils are frightened of falling. If I'm very calm, and very still, and very kind to it… steady… steady… there. It trusts me.”

Pro tips

  • This one only works from the front. Keep the back of your hand towards your audience and never turn sideways.
  • Do it standing up with everyone in front of you, not round a table.
  • The slower you open your fingers, the better it looks.

If something goes wrong

If somebody spots the finger, laugh and wiggle all five fingers of your right hand: "Oh no, I had a helper!" The joke version gets a bigger laugh than the trick did.

Safety notes

  • Only from the front.
  • 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?

🪽 Levitation. Something floats. 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: Misdirection. People look where you look. Perform it and it counts towards the Showstopper badge.

Questions about the floating pencil trick

How do magicians make things float?
On a big stage, floating uses hidden supports, careful lighting and angles that stop you seeing what's holding the weight. Close up, it's usually a finger or a thumb you can't see from the front. That's why a floating trick works from one direction and gives itself away from the side.
What is misdirection?
Misdirection is deciding where people look. If you look at your right hand, your audience looks there too, and your left hand can do the secret. A question or a joke at the right moment moves attention just as well as a big gesture.

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