3️⃣ The Answer Is Always 3

Think of a Number for kids: the whole trick

You ask your friend to think of any number at all and do some sums in their head. You never ask what they picked and they never tell you anything. Then you tell them the answer they're looking at. It's a level 1 apprentice trick for ages 6 to 11 (grades 1st–5th), takes 2 minutes to learn, and needs nothing but your hands. Flick, the shop's rabbit, reads every step aloud with a picture, so a child can follow it alone.

The secret

The steps quietly cancel their starting number out, so everybody who follows them ends up on 3.

What you need

Nothing at all: this one is done with your hands.

How to do it

1. Say: think of any number, nice and small, between 1 and 10. Don't tell me.
2. Say: double it.
3. Say: add 6.
4. Say: cut it in half.
5. Say: now take away the number you started with.
6. Wait. Look at them. Then say: you're thinking of… three.

Magic words to say

“Don't tell me anything. Just think the numbers really, really loudly. Louder. I'm nearly there. Hold still…”

Pro tips

• This needs nothing at all, so it's the trick for a car, a queue or a dinner table.
• Change the 6 and the answer changes with it: add 10 and the answer is 5. Add any even number and the answer is half of it, so you can do it twice with a different ending.
• Say the final number slowly, like you're reading it off their forehead.

If something goes wrong

If they get a different answer, it's their arithmetic, not your magic. Say "let's do that bit again" and walk through it with them. You've just become a maths teacher, which is also a kind of magician.

Safety notes

• 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.

Why it works

Doubling a number and adding 6 and halving it leaves their number plus 3. Taking their own number away leaves 3, and it does that whatever they started with, including a huge number or a fraction.

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: Patter: what you say. A trick is a story, not a thing that happens. Perform it and it counts towards the Mind Reader badge.

Questions about think of a number

Can you do magic with no props?

Yes, and those are the handiest tricks you can own, because you always have them with you. Number tricks need nothing but your voice, and some illusions need only your hands.

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.

More from The Mind Reader's Corner

• 🔮 The 1089 Trick (level 1, 5 minutes)
• 🎲 The X-Ray Dice Trick (level 1, 3 minutes)
• 🐘 The Grey Elephant in Denmark (level 1, 3 minutes)
• 🧮 The Calculator Trick (level 1, 3 minutes)
• All 80 magic tricks for kids, the easy ones by age, and how to put on a magic show