GMS...

(i'm thinking of GPS...but I digress...)

following the coils you might add a very realistic stretching tongue...

I do...

Or I use in Winter shows with stories about a certain Christmas Story and a Flag pole.

I triple dog dare you.....

Deja Zoo by Samuel Patrick Smith! Kids love it!




Leo

Paul,

This is a great one that I have had lots of success with for little kids. You can also do it table hopping.

https://youtu.be/ULE_54flakM

I also use creative magic flash cards for my card tricks.

Also Samuel Patrick smith makes close up "what's my job" and "sketch-o-magic".
Good luck.

Patrick

Professors nightmare
Magic coloring book
Fraidy cat rabbit
Poker test
color monte
Hoping half
zone infinity

All of the above done closeup get good reactions at least that's my experience

My favorite is the Sponge Rabbits. The are so many routines you can do with those:
Double while in their hand.
Quick vanish.
Put through table.
Put in one ear, out the other.
Etc.

Other plus is kids like rabbits.

"Hot dog" by Nick Trost and Patrick Reymond, is a nice themed packet trick. Available from various magic dealers.

- Donald

I don't do any card tricks for kids, close-up. 10,000 card tricks are churned out each year by the magic community, and none of them are suitable for children. Yes, you might adapt a few tricks with cards for kids, if you understand how to entertain kids, but I've never come up with a really good one. I will do a card trick for a family, such as card to wallet. It's a strong trick for the adults, and a worthless trick for the kids. However, I involve the kids by letting them pick the card and write their names on it, and otherwise use them as my helper, and this aspect of their involvement keeps them (or at least the one who is helping), engaged. But I think cards are the 2nd weakest tool in the magician's arsenal for entertaining kids (mentalism effects being the weakest), so why pick cards when there are other ready made tricks around (see lists given by all of the foregoing magicians.

I do kid show magic exclusively and I also don't do any card tricks, at all. I agree with noland. Kids don't care about cards or card tricks; they respond to stuff they identify with or that is colorful and simple.
Get a plastic ball and vase and do a chop cup routine with it.
Wear some #19 or #16 rubber bands on your wrist and do Crazy Man's Handcuffs.
Keep a thumb tip loaded with a 9" diamond cut red silk scarf in your pocket and do an appearing/vanishing hank routine.
Carry two red sponge balls and a squeaker with you.
Grab a pencil and do the "rubber pencil" magic illusion.
Marvin's Magic just came out with an iPhone based magic kit that has lots of great looking tricks that would grab their attention because you're using your phone.
Get some magician's rope in 10", 24" and 38" lengths and do a Professor's Nightmare routine with a cool story like Bill Abbott does; this is the ultimate pack small play big (and cheap) classic.
Get a miniature change bag or Buddha Papers and do some cool vanish/appearance/transformations.
Get a set of 3 miniature magic coloring books and do a Monte routine with them; you can even purchase this as a package from some dealers. I personally like the ones that are not stamp-sized but more note-pad sized.
All these are great for kids.

For kids, I do one card trick. Card through hank. I drew a mouth on a cheap white handkerchief with Sharpies so there are gags about saying "hi Hank" and he can't hear. No ears. Use your imagination to see where to go from there. Hank can taste the card with marker on it (without a signature you don't have a trick) and he spits it out. Simple trick, simple premise, but treating Hank as a puppet makes it less a card trick and more a silly interaction that ends with magic.

My favorite "butterfingers" moment was with this trick. I let go of the corner while shaking the cards up and down (Hank chewing) and every card hit the floor. One card was face up. One. The selected card. Pure luck, but Loki was smiling on us that day and when Hank spit out all the cards, he turned over only one. I will never manage to repeat that moment, but it was wonderful.

Think visual. Color Monte is good with older kids. But sponges will keep them going as long as you can find ways to personify them. Again, add personality. I have spong teddy bears. The one that keeps coming back is the troublemaker. I put him on time out in my pocket and you know the rest. For close up also look at Jumping Gems. If you do any game tricks, make the kid the winner. No matter what!

Patrick

I just started doing an egg bag routine at my restaurant gig. Turns out it's fantastic. currently my favourite trick I do in that setting. My patter is it's a portal into the kitchen and of course end the routine with the child producing the egg from the bag all by themselves at the head of the table.

I just had the idea today (although probably not the first to have had it) to use my business cards and the out to lunch principle to make a rabbit appear in a hat that I drew and the kids can colour it in after. I'm going to try it out this weekend.

One OTL that I've been using for some time starts off with a pack of blank business cards. I draw a hat below the gimmick and ask the child if he wants to write his initials in the hat on this side or the other side (it doesn't matter whatever side he chooses, I choose the opposite side). The card is then removed and turned over so I can again draw a top hat and one of us signs initials on the back side. The rabbit appears on the original front side and if the child chose that side to initial, it was his "magic initials" that "caused the rabbit to appear", otherwise it was my "magic initials" that did the trick. I like your idea of having the child color (or colour) the card afterwards and I could work in appearing crayons for the child to do so (I use some old cigarette moves for this).

I have several routines that I use close-up for kids. Heck, I'm a specialist! Pm me and I'll go into detail.
One that I might mention involves a color changing silk and a pack of M and M's. But I'm in a rush at the moment so I have to sign out.

Had an interesting thing happen to me yesterday. Made my day, actualy. I was in the grocery store, just minding my business,and a couple of young kids came up to me and said "Hi Mr Magic! Can you show me a magic trick?" (Actually, I first overheard them talking to their mom "Hey! That's the magic guy!)

Anyway, being who I am, I happened to have Al Goshman's "And Then There Were Four!" set up in my pocket, ready to go. So naturally, I performed it.

Their reactions were golden.

Kids are the best! If you love them, they will pick up on it. And if you love to perform magic, then that's a winning combinaton. Can't be beat.

I will never forget my early childhood influences. And I will never forget the day someone took the time to show ME an Al Goshman effect. It led me down the path to who I am today.

So every time I do magic for a child, I think to myself, only God knows the influenece and the impact I am having on that young mind, It's comforting to know I may have the next David Copperfield on my hands, and the art lives on. And in a way, I helped perpetuate it through random acts of kindness done to a little child.

In a sense, it's the purpose of life.

Doug your post was a smile bringer to this big kid.

Do you use cartoon voices during your Goshman routine.

I incorporate the cartoon voices generously and randomly whenever I can stick them in. Kids go nuts!

I even have a bright orange sponge carrot I use for Bugs. Kids still recognize the voices and characters even to this very day. (Amazingly!) Mel did such a great service to humanity and left such an incredible continuing, ENDURING legacy with these voices.