Here is a card trick from Edwin Connell's Elements of Abstract and Linear Algebra, page 18 (it can be found online). I always do this trick to my undergraduate number theory class in the first minutes of the first day. A few weeks later, after they've learned some modular arithmetic, we come back to the trick to see why it works. I quote from Connell:
"Ask friends to pick out seven cards from a deck and then to select one to look at without showing it to you. Take the six cards face down in your left hand and the selected card in your right hand, and announce you will place the selected card in with the other six, but they are not to know where. Put your hands behind your back and place the selected card on top, and bring the seven cards in front in your left hand. Ask your friends to give you a number between one and seven (not allowing one). Suppose they say three. You move the top card to the bottom, then the second card to the bottom, and then you turn over the third card, leaving it face up on top. Then repeat the process, moving the top two cards to the bottom and turning the third card face up on top. Continue until there is only one card face down, and this will be the selected card."
When I do this trick, I always use big magician's cards (much easier for an audience to see), but a regular deck works too. To get to the trick faster, I skip the first part and just pick 7 cards myself, showing them all the cards so they see nothing is funny (like two ace of spades or something). I then spread the cards in one hand face-down and let a student pick one and show it to everyone else but me before I take it back face down. When the student is showing the cards to the class I move the rest of the cards behind me so that before I get the card back I already have the rest behind my back.
You need to make sure students at the side of the room won't be able to see what you're doing behind your back (namely, putting the mystery card on the top of the deck), so stand close to the board. Practice this with yourself many times first to be sure you can do it without screwing up. The hard part is remembering to keep the last card you reached in the count on the top of the deck; that same card will be used when you start the count in the next round. If you stick it on the bottom before counting off cards again then you'll mess everything up. For instance, if someone picks the number 3 then I start counting from the top of the deck and say (with hand movements in brackets) "One [put it under], two [put it under], three [turn it over, put it on top FACE UP and stop]. This [show face-up card to everyone] is not your card. [Put it back face-up on top] One [now put it under], two [put it under], three [turn over and put on top FACE UP and stop]. This etc. etc."
Connell advises telling people to pick up a number from 1 to 7 but not allow 1. In practice there's no need to tell people not to pick 1. They never do (it's never happened to me). They don't pick 7 either. And if they did pick 1, well, just turn over the top card and you're done! Again, that never really happens.
