👯 Do As I Do

Do As I Do for kids: the whole trick

You and a friend take a deck each and do exactly the same things at the same time: shuffle, cut, take a card, remember it, put it back. You swap decks and each find your own card. You both turn over the same one. It's a level 2 conjurer trick for ages 7 to 12 (grades 2nd–6th), takes 10 minutes to learn, and needs one thing you already have. Flick, the shop's rabbit, reads every step aloud with a picture, so a child can follow it alone.

The secret

You peek at the bottom card of your deck while you shuffle, and that is the card you will claim as yours. When you swap decks, their card has landed next to the one you peeked at, so it finds itself.

What you need

• A deck of cards

How to do it

1. Give your friend one two deck and keep the other. Tell them to copy you exactly.
2. Shuffle, and sneak a look at the bottom card of your own two deck.
3. Both of you take a card from the middle, look at it, and put it on top.
4. Both cut two deck once, so the card is lost in the middle.
5. Swap decks. Find your card in theirs, and have them find theirs in yours.
6. Turn both cards over together. They match.

Magic words to say

“We're going to do exactly the same thing at exactly the same time, you and me. Same shuffle, same cut, same everything. And at the end we'll see how alike we really are.”

Pro tips

• Do everything a half-beat behind them, not ahead. Copying them is what makes it look like they are in charge.
• Say "don't show me, I don't want to know" when they look at their card. It is true, and it is the line that sells the whole thing.
• This is the best trick in the shop for a brother or sister, because they do half of it.

If something goes wrong

If the card next to your key is not theirs, they cut twice. Say "you shuffled better than me", find the key again, and take the card on its other side.

Safety notes

• Needs a helper.
• Sit at a table.
• No fire, no flames and nothing sharp in a child's hand anywhere in the Magic Shop. Nothing ever goes in a mouth, a nose or an ear.

What kind of trick is this?

🔮 Prediction. You knew all along, or you read their mind. Almost every trick ever invented is one of eight kinds, and knowing which one you're watching is how magicians work out how a new trick is done.

The skill it teaches: Working with helpers. A helper should walk away feeling brilliant. Perform it and it counts towards the Card Keeper badge.

Questions about do as i do

How do you do a card trick?

Most beginner card tricks use a secret "key card" that you know, or a special order the cards are in before you start. Your friend picks a card, the secret quietly leads you to it, and then you reveal it in the most dramatic way you can think of.

How do magicians read minds?

They don't hear your thoughts. Mind-reading tricks use maths that always lands on the same answer, a secret peek, or a code agreed with a partner beforehand. Magicians who do mind tricks are called mentalists.

More from The Card Cabinet

• 🃏 The Key Card Trick (level 1, 5 minutes)
• 🔢 The 21 Card Trick (level 1, 10 minutes)
• 🅰️ The Four Aces Trick (level 1, 5 minutes)
• 🐝 The Spelling Card Trick (level 2, 15 minutes)
• All 80 magic tricks for kids, the easy ones by age, and how to put on a magic show