You fill a glass to the brim, lay a card over the top, and turn the whole thing upside down. You take your hand away. The card stays put and not a drop comes out.
🌟 Level 1: Apprentice
⏱ 5 minutes to learn
🧪 Potions
🎒 Ages 6+
Works by itself, or one simple move. It works the first try.
🚫 A potion is for looking at, not for drinking.
What you need
The secret
Get ready, before anybody is watching
Do this over a sink or a tray the first few times. It works, but learning it is wet.
Magicians use secrets. Some secrets are hidden objects, some are special ways of holding things, and some are clever maths. The biggest secret of all is attention: a magician gets you to look at one thing while the secret happens somewhere else. Then they practise until it looks like nothing at all.
What do I need to start doing magic?
Almost nothing. A deck of cards, a coin, a pencil, a rubber band, a paper cup and some paper will get you through dozens of tricks. A wand is fun and completely optional.
The Upside-Down Water Card for kids: the whole trick
You fill a glass to the brim, lay a card over the top, and turn the whole thing upside down. You take your hand away. The card stays put and not a drop comes out. It's a level 1 apprentice trick for ages 6 to 11 (grades 1st–5th), takes 5 minutes to learn, and needs 3 things you already have. Flick, the shop's rabbit, reads every step aloud with a picture, so a child can follow it alone.
The secret
There is no secret move at all. The air pushing up on the card is stronger than the little bit of water pushing down, so the card simply stays where it is.
What you need
A clear glass or plastic cup
Water
An index card, or a sheet of paper
Get ready, before anybody is watching
Do this over a sink or a tray the first few times. It works, but learning it is wet.
How to do it
Fill the glass right up to the top with the water.
Lay the index card flat over the top and press it down.
Hold the index card in place and turn the glass upside down over a tray.
Take your hand away. The card holds, and the water stays in.
Magic words to say
“Water falls down. Everybody knows that. It's one of the few things you can really count on. Except, as it turns out, when I ask it not to.”
Pro tips
Over a tray every time, even when you are good at it. A confident magician with a cloth underneath is still a confident magician.
Let somebody else take the card off at the end, into the tray. Giving them the ending makes it theirs.
A plastic card works better than paper, which goes soggy after two or three goes.
If something goes wrong
If it drips, say "too much water", top the glass up properly, and go again. A full glass almost never fails.
Safety notes
A potion is for looking at, not for drinking.
A bit messy.
Sit at a table.
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.
The science behind the trick
The air around us presses on everything, quite hard, from every direction. The card has a whole atmosphere pushing up underneath it and only a glassful of water pushing down, so up wins. Turning the glass also means any water that tries to leave would have to let air in past the card, and the card is in the way.
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:Patter: what you say. A trick is a story, not a thing that happens. Perform it and it counts towards the Kitchen Alchemist badge.
Questions about the upside-down water card
How do magicians do their tricks?
Magicians use secrets. Some secrets are hidden objects, some are special ways of holding things, and some are clever maths. The biggest secret of all is attention: a magician gets you to look at one thing while the secret happens somewhere else. Then they practise until it looks like nothing at all.
What do I need to start doing magic?
Almost nothing. A deck of cards, a coin, a pencil, a rubber band, a paper cup and some paper will get you through dozens of tricks. A wand is fun and completely optional.