#SHAPE MAGIC PROGRAM HOW TO#

‘If your child learns magic tricks, they have something cool to show their friends. ‘A lot of magicians say they were quite shy as a child,’ Duncan says. Learning magic can also boost children’s self-esteem. ‘A good performer interacts with their spectators and thinks about how the illusion looks from someone else’s point of view, and this helps them develop social skills like empathy.’ ‘When a child stands up in front of an audience, they become more confident,’ Prof Wiseman explains. Learning to do this is a good way for children to hone their social skills.

#SHAPE MAGIC PROGRAM HOW TO#

Successful magicians don’t just know how to do tricks it’s equally important to engage the audience. ‘Magicians make mistakes all the time, but they learn from them and improve.’ Social skills ‘It’s important not to worry about failing,’ says Prof Wiseman. Learning magic tricks can increase children’s resilience and grit, as they have to keep working at them if they’re to perform them successfully. Kids who are resilient don’t dwell on their mistakes rather, they seem them as learning opportunities. Resilience – the ability to bounce back from failure and try again – is a vital skill for children. This determination will benefit your child at school and beyond, whether they’re working on a difficult maths challenge, learning to ride a bike, or practising a musical instrument. ‘Learning a trick helps to improve children’s concentration and focus, and teaches them that repetition leads to perfection.’ ‘There’s no quick fix with magic: if you don’t practise over and over again, it’s unlikely to work,’ says Duncan. The saying ‘practice makes perfect’ may be a cliché, but it’s essential if children want to learn to perform magic tricks. Unpicking how a trick works – whether they’re learning it themselves, or watching someone else’s – means children have to think logically and laterally, which develops their problem-solving ability. They involve a fixed set of steps that lead to a single, consistent (and breath-taking) outcome that works every time. Critical thinkingĪlongside creative skills, magic can also help children develop critical thinking skills.Īlthough tricks and illusions may seem impossible and incredible, they’re actually very logical. ‘It’s always good to be able to adopt different perspectives and see a situation in lots of different ways,’ says Prof Wiseman. This creativity can benefit children in the classroom and beyond, whether they’re writing stories or poems, working on an art project or devising a drama script. ‘That experience expands the mind and helps people think about different ways of looking at the world, which encourages creative thinking.’

‘When you watch a magic trick, you see something that appears to be impossible,’ Prof Wiseman explains. Prof Wiseman’s study found that children who were taught a simple magic trick and then asked to take a creativity test that involved coming up with multiple uses for an everyday object scored higher on the test than those who weren’t taught the trick.

Shape magic program