✏️ The Vanishing Pencil

The Vanishing Pencil for kids: the whole trick

You sit at a table, hold up a pencil and tap it on the table three times, counting out loud. On three the pencil is gone. Then you turn round, and everybody laughs, because there it is, tucked behind your ear. 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

On the way up between taps, your hand goes up beside your head, and on the second time up you leave the pencil tucked behind your ear. Everybody is watching the table, so nobody sees it go.

What you need

• A wooden pencil

How to do it

1. Sit at a table with your friend across from you, and hold the pencil up like a wand.
2. Say: on three, this pencil will disappear. Then tap it on the table and say one!
3. Lift it right up beside your head every time, then bring it down and tap: two!
4. On the next lift, leave the pencil tucked behind your ear, and keep looking at the table.
5. Bring your empty hand down and tap the table hard: three!
6. Open your hand slowly. It's empty! Look amazed.
7. Then turn round so they see the pencil behind your ear, and take a bow.

Magic words to say

“This is a very shy pencil. It doesn't like being counted. One… two… three! Oh. Oh no. Where did it go?”

Pro tips

• It works best on somebody sitting down across the table, so they look down at your tapping.
• Practise in a mirror until your three lifts look exactly the same.
• The turn round at the end is a joke, not a mistake. Let them laugh: that's the finish.

If something goes wrong

If somebody spots it go, wink and say "that was the practice round". Then do the Rubber Pencil instead, which nobody can spot.

Safety notes

• Only from the front.
• 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.

What kind of trick is this?

💨 Vanish. Something disappears. 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 vanishing pencil

How do magicians make things disappear?

The thing doesn't really go anywhere. It gets hidden in a hand, a fold of paper, a sleeve or a pocket, or it was never where you thought it was. A magician might pretend to take a coin with one hand while it quietly stays in the other.

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 from The Everyday Shelf

• ✏️ The Rubber Pencil Trick (level 1, 1 minute)
• 🪽 The Floating Pencil Trick (level 1, 5 minutes)
• 👻 The Ghost Pencil Trick (level 1, 5 minutes)
• 🎗️ The Jumping Rubber Band Trick (level 2, 15 minutes)
• All 80 magic tricks for kids, the easy ones by age, and how to put on a magic show