The Cafe is a wonderful resource for giving & receiving advice, SO--- Does anyone have any suggestions for routines in walk around situations involving children. Apart from sponge balls that is.
Regards, David

How about the hankerchief mouse?
Details can be found in "Paul Daniels Adult Magic - Barry Murray" Page 78 titled "The Animated Mouse"
I have great fun with this - it can be performed with any handkerchief - impromptu - so even when you don't have anything with you, you can still entertain.

Shaun

Irish magician Quentin Reynolds does an incredibly grand job in his video "5 Minutes with a Pocket Handkerchief". It is a virtual textbook lesson in how to properly handle kids -- as well as having some wonderful handling of the handkerchief mouse, as referred to by Shaun, above.
On another tack, the Miser's Dream works beautifully with kids; they don't tend to think of you as a "real" magician until you've pulled a coin from behind somebody's ear.
And, of course, there's balloons, if the setting is right.
cheers,
Peter Marucci
showtimecol@aol.com

Wonderful ideas so far. How about carrying a length of soft rope, ala the Jolly Green Giant's 'ShoeLace' for greater visibility, and perform simple magic knot tricks including the old standby... The Shoelace Knot. Kids can relate to it easily because most of them have learned how to tie up their shoelaces and experienced the miserable knotty ones too!

Of course the magic can include tricks with ring and rope, penetrations like rope through thumb (ala rope through neck which is not generally suitable for young children) and handkerchief penetration with the children holding the rope taut.

I have tried to learn to incorporate common objects that children may have around them at the time, into my magic fun routines with them.

Crayons, little objects they may have on them like a finger ring that you can manipulate like a thimble and give back to the child. They will talk for days about the magic you performed with their 'ring' or whatever.

Even a few moments to turn a square of paper into a magical Flapping Bird or other origami object that they can take with them, will leave a lasting impression... especially if you autograph it, and possibly include your phone number, at the same time you are adding some accent eyes, etc.

There is a new effect called Once upon a time. It's a card effect where you tell the story about the three bears, jack and the bean stalk and others. The story goes all wrong (kind of like Doc Eason's Sam The Bell Hop) but in the end they all come out right.
I also made a coloring book via coloring cards. this works well, same concept but with cards.
Also I have posted this before but you can do almost all of your card routines with children's playing cards.

Once again, thanks guys. I'm off to practice
:)

I have a smaller version of tricks I use in my kids act.

Small Version:

• Hippy-Hop-Rabbits
  
• Square Circle
  
• Straosphere
  
• Production Tube
  

There are others available.