Choose one deck
A standard deck has thirteen ranks and four suits per rank, without jokers. Our printable is a reduced teaching deck with twos, fives, sevens and nines only. Keep the two setups separate.
Sort, check, gather
Lay out a row for each rank and verify all four suits. A missing or duplicated card can prevent a group from forming correctly. Extra printouts should stay outside the deck in use. Once checked, gather the rows and shuffle.
Make the backs uninformative
The supplied sheet has faces only. Use opaque paper or sleeves so an offered card cannot be identified through its back. Check cuts and markings that could reveal a particular rank. Ask an adult to handle cutting.
State the activity
You can use the cards for a visible asking prompt or the separately described mini round. Do not silently change between four-card books and pair matching during play. The printable resource states the smaller deck’s setup.