Science magic tricks for kids
Start with
- What they see
- Transformation
- Level
- 1 Apprentice
- Ages
- 5 to 9
- You need
- bowl, water, pepper, dish soap
All 10 science magic tricks for kids
| Trick | What they see | Level | Ages | You need | To learn |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Pepper and Soap Trick | Transformation | 1 Apprentice | 5 to 9 | bowl, water, pepper, dish soap | 2 minutes |
| The Arrow Flip Trick | Transformation | 1 Apprentice | 5 to 9 | glass, water, paper, marker | 2 minutes |
| The Disappearing Coin in Water | Vanish | 1 Apprentice | 5 to 10 | glass, water, coin, saucer | 2 minutes |
| The Glowing Water Trick | Transformation | 1 Apprentice | 6 to 11 | glass, water, tonic water, UV light | 2 minutes |
| Invisible Ink | Production | 1 Apprentice | 5 to 10 | white paper, baking soda, water, cotton swab, grape juice, paintbrush | 10 minutes |
| The Upside-Down Water Card | Levitation | 1 Apprentice | 6 to 11 | glass, water, index card | 5 minutes |
| The Balloon Static Wand | Levitation | 1 Apprentice | 5 to 10 | balloon, paper strip | 5 minutes |
| The Colour-Changing Potion | Transformation | 2 Conjurer | 6 to 11 | grape juice, baking soda, glass, water | 10 minutes |
| The Obedient Egg | Levitation | 1 Apprentice | 6 to 11 | egg, glass, water, salt | 5 minutes |
| The Floating Paperclip | Levitation | 1 Apprentice | 6 to 11 | paperclips, bowl, water, dish soap | 5 minutes |
Start with these
- The Pepper and Soap Trick. Pepper floats all over a bowl of water. 2 minutes to learn, for ages 5 to 9.
- The Arrow Flip Trick. You draw a fat arrow pointing to the right and stand it up behind an empty glass. 2 minutes to learn, for ages 5 to 9.
- The Disappearing Coin in Water. A coin sits on the table with an empty glass standing on top of it, and everybody can see it through the side. 2 minutes to learn, for ages 5 to 10.
What you need, and what a grown-up does
| Trick | You need | A grown-up does |
|---|---|---|
| The Pepper and Soap Trick | bowl, water, pepper, dish soap | nothing |
| The Arrow Flip Trick | glass, water, paper, marker | nothing |
| The Disappearing Coin in Water | glass, water, coin, saucer | nothing |
| The Glowing Water Trick | glass, water, tonic water, UV light | a hot or bright-light step |
| Invisible Ink | white paper, baking soda, water, cotton swab, grape juice, paintbrush | a bit of setting up |
| The Upside-Down Water Card | glass, water, index card | nothing |
| The Balloon Static Wand | balloon, paper strip | a hot or bright-light step |
| The Colour-Changing Potion | grape juice, baking soda, glass, water | nothing |
| The Obedient Egg | egg, glass, water, salt | nothing |
| The Floating Paperclip | paperclips, bowl, water, dish soap | nothing |
The science in each one
| Trick | The science |
|---|---|
| The Pepper and Soap Trick | Water has surface tension: the top layer behaves like a stretchy skin, and the pepper is light enough to sit on it. |
| The Arrow Flip Trick | Light bends when it crosses from water into glass into air. |
| The Disappearing Coin in Water | This is called total internal reflection. |
| The Glowing Water Trick | Quinine soaks up ultraviolet light, which human eyes can't see, and hands it straight back out as visible blue light. |
| Invisible Ink | Grape juice has a natural dye in it that changes colour depending on what it touches. |
| The Upside-Down Water Card | The air around us presses on everything, quite hard, from every direction. |
| The Balloon Static Wand | Rubbing the balloon on your hair scrapes tiny electric charges off it, and the balloon keeps them. |
| The Colour-Changing Potion | Grape juice and red cabbage contain a dye that changes colour depending on what it is mixed with. |
| The Obedient Egg | Whether something floats depends on how heavy it is compared with the water it pushes out of the way. |
| The Floating Paperclip | Water molecules pull on each other, and at the top there is nothing above them to pull back, so the surface pulls itself tight into something like a skin. |
For a classroom
These double as demonstrations: they use nothing a school does not already have, they take a few minutes each, and the explanation is on the page in a child's words. The 16 tricks in the Mind Reader's Corner do the same job for arithmetic.
Safety
Every step that uses something hot or a bright light is a grown-up's step, whatever the child's age, and Flick says so out loud before it. There is no fire, no flame and nothing sharp in a child's hand anywhere in the shop: scissors cut paper, card and string only, and a cutting step says to ask a grown-up. No trick asks a child to put anything in a mouth, a nose or an ear. Tricks with coins, dice, paperclips or pom-poms carry the AAP's choking note for brothers and sisters under 4, and none of them is offered below kindergarten. The kitchen-science tricks use only food-safe things, and a potion is always for looking at, not for drinking.
The Magic Shop is free, with no ads and no sign-up. What your child has, has learned and has performed stays on their own device and is never sent anywhere, so there is nothing to lose and no account to make.
More: all 80 magic tricks for kids, Magic School and how to put on a magic show.
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Checked against how Peabody works on 28 October 2026. Written with help from AI, from Peabody's own code and library. Peabody is a learning app, not an assessment: if you're worried about your child's learning, talk to their teacher. How Peabody's pages are made.