A pack of cards, confidence and some practice is all you need to amaze friends and family with these 5 easy card tricks for kids aged 8 to 12 years to learn and perform. So for all would be magicians out there, round up your audience and let the show begin!

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Easy Card Tricks Tips

Before you get started with your easy card tricks, here a few tips to help you preform like a pro:

• Learn to count in silence, without moving your lips
• Practice all your tricks in front of the mirror before performing the to your audience. This will give you the confidence to perform like a pro.
• Add drama to your card tricks by using some ‘magical’ language.
• Keep your audience guessing, never let them know how it’s done!

#1. Guess the Card

With a bit of preparation, this is a simple card trick that will impress all ages.

• Before your audience arrives, take your deck and divide it into suits. Put Hearts and Clubs together and Diamonds and Spades in a 2nd pile.
• Place the 2 piles back together, but in a way that you can see where each of the 2nd pile starts.
• Once the audience are seated, split the cards into the 2 pre-ordered piles.
• Shuffle the first pile and ask one member of the audience to pick a card.
• Once they have memorised the card, get them to place it back into the other pile of cards and let them shuffle that pile.
• Take the pile from them and start to look through it. You will immediately see the ‘odd card out’ but be sure to pause for dramatic effect and pretend you are studying the cards.
• After a few moments, hold the card up to the audience and ask if that is the one.
• Ta Dah! You are right!

#2. Cards Move in the Deck

For this trick you will need two decks of cards. But you will only be showing your audience one!

• Pick out the same 2 cards from each deck i.e. Queen of Hearts and 5 of Spades.
• Hide the 2nd deck of cards as you won’t need these for your trick.
• Place the first pair you have chosen at the top of the deck and the 2nd pair (from the other deck) onto the bottom of the deck you are using for the trick.
• Show your audience the top 2 cards and ask them to memorise them.
• Place them back on top or within the pack, you could even ask an audience member to do this. You just need to ensure they don’t put them at the bottom!
• Then concentrate and utter the magic words. And say “now let’s see if they magically moved to the bottom of the pack”.
• Lift the pack up and show the bottom 2 cards and of course they will look the same as the ones you showed the audience from the top of the deck. But you’ll know the secret!

#3. Spell the Next Card

For this trick you will need to be able to do simple spelling. You will only need one full suit of cards from the deck.

You will need to prepare the trick before your audience comes in.

• Choose the suit you want for your trick i.e. hearts, clubs, diamonds or spades. And take all the cards from that suit out of the pack and leave the rest of the pack aside.
• Arrange the cards in the following order starting face down with the bottom card.

1. Five (at the bottom)
2. Nine
3. Ten
4. King
5. Jack
6. Two
7. Four
8. Six
9. Queen
10. Ace
11. Seven
12. Eight
13. Three (this should be the top card.

You are ready to begin.

• Spell out the card names in the correct order, Ace, One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Jack, Queen and finally King.
• So spell out A.C.E and as you spell remove one card from the top of the pack and place it below the rest. When you have removed 3 cards you can turn over the next card and it will be the Ace.
• Place that face up on the table and continue with O.N.E. again place the cards below the deck face down,  in the order you take them out. When 3 have been removed, turn over the fourth card and it will be the One.
• Place it beside the Ace and continue until you have all the cards laid out on the table in order.

It is a good idea to practice a few times before you do this trick for your audience. Just to make sure you get it perfect!

#4. Find A Card by Counting

For this you will need a full deck of cards. Before your audience arrives, you pick out one number card, say a 4 or a 6. You take that card out and count 4 or 6 cards from the bottom of the deck (depending on which number you choose). You can choose any number card, just count out that number of cards.

• Next place the number card turned over the opposite way to the rest of the deck 4 or 6 up from the bottom.
• Get a member of the audience to choose a card from the deck.
• When they have memorised it get them to place it back on top.
• Cut the deck and place the cut cards under the bottom cards.
• Start to fan out the cards until you come to the one that is turned a different way.
• Say I know this is not your card, but your card is 4 or 6 cards after this one.
• Count out the correct number of cards and then turn over the next card, which of course, will be the one they picked.

#5. Read Your Audience’s Mind

For this trick you will need a regular deck of cards.

• Remember the top card on the deck.
• Place them face down on a table and ask a member of the audience to cut the cards. Place them face up ( the opposite to the rest of the cards) on top of the deck.
• Then ask them to cut the deck again, deeper this time. And again place them on top face up.
• Move off the upturned cards and hold up the first face down card to the audience, without looking at it. You of course know that it is the card from the top of the pack.
• Tell them to concentrate really hard as you are going to read their mind.
• Then say the card name and wow them with your mind reading capabilities.

Over to you, do you have any easy card tricks for 8 to 12 year olds to perform? Please share them with us in the comments below.