Legendary magician Harry Houdini was born on March 24, 1874.

In honor of his birthday, amaze your friends and family with a few easy-to-learn “magic” tricks. Be theatrical and confident as you perform these tricks, and you’ll have your audience believing in your hocus-pocus skills.

Trick 1: Turning water into ice

You’ll need: a mug, a sponge, two ice cubes and water.

Before doing the trick, place the sponge in the mug and place the ice cubes on top of the sponge.
In front of your audience, announce how you turn water into ice. Pour water into the cup. (Practice ahead of time to determine just how much water you can successfully use.) The sponge will absorb the water.
Now, tip the cup. The ice will drop from the cup, and since the sponge has absorbed the water, nothing else will fall from the cup.
Immediately put the cup into your “magic bag” so no one can examine the cup. You might want to have an identical cup, without a sponge, in your “magic bag” so you can pull it out for audience members to inspect.

Trick 2: Rising pencil

With this trick, a pencil will appear to rise off the table underneath your outstretched palm!
Place the pencil on the table. Put your hand on top of the pencil, palm side down. Now, wrap your other hand around your wrist, but stick that hand’s index up to the palm of the hand that is on top of the pencil. Very carefully, press the pencil against your palm with that index finger, all the while grasping your wrist. Now, lift your outstretched hand from the table. It actually looks like the pencil is rising from the table.

Trick 3: What’s your number?

Here’s a math-based trick that will have your audience scratching their heads trying to figure out how it works. The trick figures out each audience member’s phone number. It is easier if you have a calculator.

Here are the steps to the trick:
1. Ask an audience volunteer what the first three digits of his or her phone number are (not the area code). Type that number into your calculator.
2. Multiply that number by 80.
3. Add 1.
4. Multiply that number by 250.
5. Have your audience member punch in the last four digits of his or her phone number to the number calculated in Step 4, and hit the add button.
6. Add that 4-digit number again to the total.
7. Subtract 250.
8. Divide the number by 2. The number you come up with will be  your audience member’s phone number.

(Example: The audience member’s number is 555-1234.
Step 1: You put in 5-5-5.
Step 2: You multiply 555 by 80, and you get 44,400.
Step 3: Add 1, and you get 44,401.
Step 4: Multiply this by 250, and you get 11,100,250.
Step 5: The audience member adds the last four digits (1,234) to the number, and should get 11,101,484.
Step 6: Repeat adding 1,234, and get 11,102,718.
Step 7: Subtract 250, and get 11,102,468.
Step 8: Divide by 2, and, presto, you get: 5,551,234.)