OK - so I have a school job.

Yes - on the same day at the other one!

80 3 to 6 years olds for 3/4 hour.

I'm just interested in what routines you would do to ensure maximum entertainment for the entire range.

And remember, there's 80 of the little darlings!!

Well Balloons are out.
Sammy Smith has a video on this and he specializes in this range. He closes with a puppet, rabbit in hat, pretending to whisper to him, on doing a trick.

He does crayons to silk then uses the silks in a the Crystal Tube with some funny lines. He also does a nest of boxes.

Consider the coloring book, and egg bag trick, miser's dream, these are all good tricks.

BJ Hickmans Video is a good one and you can get some good routines from that tape.

Visual, Color, and audience participation is a must.

One thing you need to keep in mind is the intellectual differences between a 3 year old and a 6 year old. Whenever I have a wide age range like that, one thing I do is, in sequence, target one routine for each age. For the 3 year olds, you probably don't even have to do any magic, get a puppet and tell a story. Also remember 3/4 of an hour is going to be a very long time to these kids.. their attention span is rather short. Anything that is visual and colorful, and doesn't require them to remember anything will be good for this age. Don't think "magic" with this age group..... think
"entertainment."

Margarette

Entertainment a la Barney or Sesame Street Style.

The coloring book is good. A pet rabbit trick is good for an ending, clown magic is also good, slapstick humor!

Check out David Ginn's site. He has some great books and pamphlets about doing kids shows... http://www.ginnmagic.com

My show for this age range (and even older) opens with the oh-so-humble rope to silk. Kids love characters. So I give my "friend" the rope, a name. He lives in my pocket and comes out still 'sleeping'. So, the kids have to yell "Wake up Ralph!" He then attempts to 'stand up'.

Holding him by one end I use the look-don't-see method here as I stand and gesture toward Ralph -- who proceeds to fall and dangle by the end I am holding onto. The kids, of course, yell that he's not standing. I do this a few times with some other bits o' business, and in the end Ralph transforms from a rope into a silk handkerchief.

There's more to this, and the transformation makes sense within the routine of course.

I do get a great reaction from this simple routine though. It involves the kids in the show immediately, and when the transformation happens at the end, I usually hear adults audibly gasp.

Have fun with the kids,

Scott

Ah, just one more thing. Mark Daniels' shows are well suited to this age group. He has a video out titled "Book Magic" that has his full library show and explanations of tricks performed during the show. Personally, I don't perform any of his magic, but I did pick up a number of subtle ways to deal with and entertain this age group from the tape. If interested, I believe that Samuel Patrick Smith produced and distributes this tape.


Scott

Produce a bunch of rabbits, by your favorite method. Then, let the kids pet the rabbits! That'll fill 45 minutes! LOL!

What I would do for younger children. I do a dramatic routine about Captain Catfield where I dress a kid up like a Pirate cat and cut off a velcro-attached tail with a sword.

A treasure chest is produced from an empty castle. The chest is shown empty, the child thrusts the plastic sword into the chest to prove it's empty. After the chest is placed back into the castle and removed, 100 feet of coloured beads cascade onto a tray held by the cat-helper.

The whole story is on tape with background music and sound effects. I find even 6 year olds can follow the simple directions on the tape (put sword in chest, walk in circles, try to catch the rubies and diamonds on the tray, etc.)

Young children love stories, music, acting, colour, noise, movement, surprise and all of these elements are present here.

Darryl the Wizard

I'd do my standard kids show that I've done about 1500 times. You just keep doing it, throwing out the stuff that doesn't play and keeping the stuff that does, until you've got a successful show. Then, and this is important, don't mess with it!

Do you think there is a maximum no. of kids that you should preform for? As we all know kids can get really out of hand

Not if they can still see the stage.

80 3-6 yr olds? What would I do?

A RUNNER!!!