What to keep little ones busy without adding to screen time? Ask them these brain teasers for kids!
50 Brain Teasers for Kids That Will Beat Boredom
Updated on Apr. 30, 2025
Language brain teasers
1. Question: What five-letter word gets shorter when you add two letters to it?
Answer: Short. (It becomes shorter.)
2. Question: You can find it in Mercury, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn but not in Venus or Neptune. What is it?
Answer: The letter R.
3. Question: What can be seen once in a minute, twice in a moment and never in a thousand years?
Answer: The letter M.
4. Question: Which word is written incorrectly in the dictionary?
Answer: The word “incorrectly.”
5. Question: What letters are easily found in every single day of the week?
Answer: D, A and Y.Â
6. Question: How many letters are there in the English alphabet?
Answer: There are 18: three in the, seven in English and eight in alphabet.
7. Question: What is the end of everything?
Answer: The letter G.
8. Question: Where does today come before yesterday?
Answer: The dictionary.
9. Question: What starts with an E and ends with an E but has only one letter?
Answer: An envelope.
“Guess the object” brain teasers
10. Question: What has a face and two hands but no arms or legs?
Answer: A clock.
11. Question: What gets wetter while it dries?
Answer: A towel.
12. Question: I am full of holes, but I can still hold a lot of water. What am I?
Answer: A sponge.
13. Question: What travels around the world but stays in the same corner?
Answer: A stamp.
14. Question: People make me, save me, change me, raise me. What am I?
Answer: Money.
15. Question: The more there is, the less you see. What is it?
Answer: Fog.
16. Question: People buy me to eat but never eat me. What am I?
Answer: A plate.
17. Question: I’m not alive, but I have five fingers, what am I?
Answer: A glove.
18. Question: Fill me up with hot or cold. Put anything in me, and I will make sure I’ll hold. What am I?
Answer: A cup
19. Question: What has a head and a tail but no body?
Answer: A coin
Mathematical brain teasers
20. Question: I am an odd number, but if you take away just a single letter, I become even. Can you guess my number?
Answer: Seven
21. Question: Can you add one mathematical symbol between 55555 to equal 500?
Answer: 555 – 55 = 500
22. Question: Ten copycats were sitting in a boat. One jumped out. How many were left?
Answer: None. They were copycats, so they all jumped out!
23. Question: A woman is a bit confused about where her meeting is. Starting on the fourth floor, she climbs up five stories, down seven stories, up six stories, down three stories, and up four stories again. What floor is she on?
Answer: The ninth floor.
24. Question: If five alligators can eat five fish in three minutes, how long will 18 alligators need to eat 18 fish?
Answer: 3 minutes
25. Question: What can you put between the digits 6 and 7 to make the result greater than 6 but less than 7?
Answer: A decimal. 6.7 is greater than 6 but less than 7.
26. Question: Mr. Smith has four daughters, and each of those daughters has one brother. How many children does Mr. Smith have?
Answer: Five children. The daughters all have the same brother.
27. Question: If there are three apples and you take away two, how many do you have?
Answer: Two
28. Question: What number do you get when you multiply all of the numbers on a telephone keypad?
Answer: Zero. Since one of the numbers is zero, the product of all numbers will be zero.
29. Question: If you had six apples and two pears in one hand and two pears and five apples in the other hand, what would you have?
Answer: Giant hands!
Puzzling brain teasers
30. Question: I come down, but I never go up. What am I?
Answer: Rain.
31. Question: I exist only when there is light, but direct light kills me. What am I?
Answer: A shadow.
32. Question: What is always in front of you but can’t be seen?
Answer: The futureÂ
33. Question: You’re driving a city bus. At the first stop, five women get on. At the second stop, one woman gets off and two men get on. At the third stop, three children get on. The bus is white, and it’s raining outside in March. What color is the bus driver’s hair?
Answer: Whatever color your hair is. You’re the bus driver.
34. Question: If an electric train is heading north, which way is the smoke going?
Answer: There is no smoke. It’s an electric train.
35. Question: What breaks but never falls, and what falls but never breaks?
Answer: Morning and night.Â
36. Question: I am always hungry and will die if not fed, but if you water me, I’ll die. What am I?
Answer: A fire.Â
37. Question: If tomorrow I said “the day before yesterday was Saturday,” which day is today?
Answer: Sunday.
38. Question: Who makes moves while sitting down?
Answer: A chess player.
39. Question: What goes up and never comes down?
Answer: Your age
Funny brain teasers
40. Question: What fruit can you never cheer up?
Answer: A blueberry.
41. Question: What can you catch, but not throw?
Answer: A cold.
42. Question: What kind of coat can be put on only when it’s wet?
Answer: A coat of paint.
43. Question: Which building has thousands of stories?
Answer: The library.
44. Question: What has many needles but doesn’t sew?
Answer: A pine tree.
45. Question: What’s really easy to get into and hard to get out of?
Answer: Trouble.
46. Question: I sometimes run, but I cannot walk. What am I?
Answer: Your nose
47. Question: Where would you take a sick boat?
Answer: To the dock.
48. Question: What has many rings but no fingers?
Answer: A telephone
49. Question: What has to be broken before you can use it?
Answer: An egg.
50. Question: What has a bottom at the top?
Answer: A leg.
