A hundred riddles for children with answers, sorted by age from three and up. Easy riddles a three-year-old can crack, tricky ones for 9 to 12, and ten joke riddles at the end that work at the dinner table. Tap "Show the answer" when you give up.
Riddles are the cheapest entertainment there is. They work in the car, in the supermarket queue, in the waiting room and in bed when nobody wants to sleep. Children practise language and logic without noticing, and the best part is that they soon start making up their own. Our nannies always have a few up their sleeve, and these are the ones families ask for again.
The queue at Ica in Hässelby, a Wednesday at five o'clock. A four-year-old in the trolley has had enough, and there are three customers ahead of you. "What has four legs but cannot walk?" She looks around, points at the shelf, says "a table!" and wants another one. By the time you reach the till she has solved four and asked the cashier one of her own, about a shopping trolley. That is how riddles work: they cost nothing and they are always with you.
How to use the riddles
- Start too easy. A riddle your child solves straight away is what makes them want the next one.
- Give clues, not answers. If it is round and you can eat it, what might it be?
- Let your child ask you the riddle. Knowing the answer and watching an adult think is half the fun.
- Save the tricky ones for the car. There is time to think, and nobody runs off.
- One answer at a time. Don't open all the answers at once, or the game is over. A child who has seen the answer immediately wants the next riddle, not to think about this one.
Which level for which child?
| Age | Level in the list | What makes it the right one | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 to 5 years | Easy riddles, numbers 1 to 25 | The answer is in the room and can be pointed at | The table, the towel, the comb, the snail |
| 6 to 8 years | Numbers 26 to 55 | The word means two things, and the child has just discovered that | The clock, the map, the piano keys, the footprints |
| 9 to 12 years | Numbers 56 to 80 | Requires turning a picture around in your head | The jumper, the stamp, the echo, the word that reads backwards |
| The whole family | Tricky riddles, 81 to 90 | Counting and logic, where adults get it wrong just as often | The eggs, the match, the farmer, the train |
| Everyone | Joke riddles, 91 to 100 | The answer is silly in a way children love | The walls, the snowman, the fish in schools |
Easy riddles for the littlest, 3 to 5 years
- What has four legs but cannot walk?
Show the answer
A table.
- What gets wetter the more it dries?
Show the answer
A towel.
- What has teeth but cannot bite?
Show the answer
A comb.
- What has an eye but cannot see?
Show the answer
A needle.
- What goes up when the rain comes down?
Show the answer
An umbrella.
- What is full of holes but still holds water?
Show the answer
A sponge.
- What has a neck but no head?
Show the answer
A bottle.
- What has a back and four legs but cannot run?
Show the answer
A chair.
- What gets bigger the more you take away?
Show the answer
A hole.
- I am round and yellow and I shine in the daytime. What am I?
Show the answer
The sun.
- I have a tail and whiskers and I like milk. Who am I?
Show the answer
A cat.
- What has a face and two hands but no nose?
Show the answer
A clock.
- I am green in summer and yellow in autumn, and I hang in a tree. What am I?
Show the answer
A leaf.
- What has a head and a foot but no body?
Show the answer
A bed. It has a head end and a foot end.
- What comes down but never goes back up?
Show the answer
Rain.
- I have wings but I am not a bird. I am stripy and I make honey.
Show the answer
A bee.
- Which house has no doors and no windows, but something tasty inside?
Show the answer
An egg.
- I carry my house on my back and I have no legs. Who am I?
Show the answer
A snail.
- What has a tongue but cannot taste?
Show the answer
A shoe.
- What has lots of rings but no fingers?
Show the answer
A tree trunk. Count the rings.
- What has a thumb and four fingers but is not alive?
Show the answer
A glove.
- What can fly without wings?
Show the answer
A cloud.
- I follow you everywhere when the sun is shining, but I disappear when it gets dark. What am I?
Show the answer
Your shadow.
- What has a hat but no head, and a foot but no shoe?
Show the answer
A mushroom.
- What has lots of eyes but cannot see?
Show the answer
A potato.
The riddles about things around the house work best with the littlest. Point at the table, the comb and the bottle afterwards and they learn how riddles work.
Riddles for children aged 6 to 8
- What runs all day but never gets anywhere?
Show the answer
A clock.
- What has cities but no houses, forests but no trees and rivers but no water?
Show the answer
A map.
- What has lots of keys but cannot open a single door?
Show the answer
A piano.
- The more you take, the more you leave behind. What are they?
Show the answer
Footprints.
- What breaks as soon as you say its name?
Show the answer
Silence.
- What goes through towns and over mountains but never moves?
Show the answer
A road.
- Which month has 28 days?
Show the answer
All of them. Every month has at least 28 days.
- What gets shorter the longer it burns?
Show the answer
A candle.
- What can you see in the water without it getting wet?
Show the answer
Your reflection.
- I have hundreds of leaves but I am not a tree. What am I?
Show the answer
A book.
- What runs all the way round the garden without moving?
Show the answer
A fence.
- Which word is always spelled wrong?
Show the answer
The word wrong.
- What has four wheels and flies?
Show the answer
A bin lorry.
- What is in the middle of Paris?
Show the answer
The letter r.
- I am at the beginning of every song and at the end of every circus. What am I?
Show the answer
The letter s.
- What can fill a whole room without taking up any space?
Show the answer
Light.
- Two fathers and two sons went fishing. They caught three fish, one each. How does that add up?
Show the answer
It was a grandfather, a father and a son. Three people.
- Which weighs more, a kilo of feathers or a kilo of stones?
Show the answer
The same. A kilo is a kilo.
- A farmer has 17 sheep. All but nine die. How many does the farmer have left?
Show the answer
Nine.
- What is yours, but other people use it far more often than you do?
Show the answer
Your name.
- I am always in front of you, but you can never see me. What am I?
Show the answer
The future.
- What goes up and down without ever moving?
Show the answer
A staircase.
- Which table can you eat?
Show the answer
A vegetable.
- What can you catch but never throw?
Show the answer
A cold.
- What can you break without touching it?
Show the answer
A promise.
- Which coat is best put on wet?
Show the answer
A coat of paint.
- What has a head and a tail but no body?
Show the answer
A coin. Heads and tails.
- What can go down the chimney when it is down, but not up the chimney when it is up?
Show the answer
An umbrella.
- What has a crown but is not a king?
Show the answer
A tooth. Or a tree.
- Which question can you never answer yes to?
Show the answer
Are you asleep?
At this age children discover that a word can mean two things. That is when riddles become properly funny, and it is now they start making up their own. Write them down, they are often better than you think.
Harder riddles for children aged 9 to 12
- What is every person on earth doing at the same time, right now?
Show the answer
Getting older.
- What has a neck but no head, and two arms but no hands?
Show the answer
A jumper.
- What can travel around the world while staying in its corner?
Show the answer
A stamp.
- I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body, but the wind wakes me. What am I?
Show the answer
An echo.
- Forwards I am heavy. Backwards I am not. What am I?
Show the answer
Ton. Backwards it reads not.
- Which day comes two days after the day before yesterday?
Show the answer
Today.
- Seven birds are sitting on a branch. A hunter shoots one of them. How many are left sitting there?
Show the answer
None. The others flew off at the bang.
- A man looks at a portrait and says: brothers and sisters I have none, but this man's father is my father's son. Who is in the picture?
Show the answer
His son.
- Which word gets shorter when you add two letters?
Show the answer
Short. Add e and r and it becomes shorter.
- What has thirteen hearts but no other organs?
Show the answer
A pack of cards. Thirteen hearts.
- Which band never plays a single note?
Show the answer
A rubber band.
- What can you take a hundred times a day without holding anything in your hands?
Show the answer
A step.
- What can you hold without ever touching it?
Show the answer
Your breath. Or a conversation.
- What has to be answered even though it never asks a question?
Show the answer
The telephone.
- If you have me, you want to share me. But if you share me, you no longer have me. What am I?
Show the answer
A secret.
- Three doctors say that Johan is their brother. Johan says he has no brothers. Who is lying?
Show the answer
Nobody. The doctors are his sisters.
- What is in the middle of March and April, but not at the beginning or end of either?
Show the answer
The letter r.
- What is easy to get into your head but hard to get out?
Show the answer
A song that is stuck there.
- What can strike without hands?
Show the answer
A clock. Or lightning.
- I can be cracked without breaking and told without being a story, and the better I am the more people laugh. What am I?
Show the answer
A joke.
- What falls every evening but never breaks?
Show the answer
Night.
- What has its bottom at the top?
Show the answer
Your legs.
- What gets whiter the dirtier it gets?
Show the answer
A blackboard.
- What can you hold in your right hand but never in your left?
Show the answer
Your left elbow.
- What has a mouth but never speaks, and a bed but never sleeps?
Show the answer
A river. It has a mouth and a riverbed.
Tricky riddles for the whole family
- How many eggs can you eat on an empty stomach?
Show the answer
One. After the first, your stomach is no longer empty.
- You walk into a cold, dark room with a single match. There is a candle, a paraffin lamp and a stove. What do you light first?
Show the answer
The match.
- What do you get if you divide 30 by a half and add 10?
Show the answer
70. Thirty divided by a half is sixty.
- How many months have 30 days?
Show the answer
Eleven. All except February have at least 30.
- A train leaves Stockholm for Göteborg at 100 kilometres an hour. Another leaves Göteborg for Stockholm at 80. Which is closer to Stockholm when they meet?
Show the answer
They are the same distance away. They are meeting, after all.
- Which is bigger: half of a quarter or a quarter of a half?
Show the answer
They are the same. One eighth.
- If three cats catch three mice in three minutes, how long does it take a hundred cats to catch a hundred mice?
Show the answer
Three minutes.
- How far into a forest can you walk?
Show the answer
To the middle. After that you are walking out again.
- I have two coins that add up to six kronor. One of them is not a five-krona coin. Which coins do I have?
Show the answer
A five-krona coin and a one-krona coin. It is the other coin that is not a five.
- Five birds are sitting on a fence. Two decide to fly away. How many are still sitting there?
Show the answer
Five. Deciding is not the same as flying.
These are counting and logic riddles. Adults get them wrong just as often as children, which is exactly what makes them fun at a dinner table. If you want more of that kind, there are Brain teasers for children and Riddles that work for both adults and children.
Joke riddles
- What did one wall say to the other?
Show the answer
Meet you at the corner.
- What does a snowman eat for breakfast?
Show the answer
Snowflakes.
- Why are fish so clever?
Show the answer
Because they live in schools.
- What do you say to a tomato lying in the road?
Show the answer
Ketchup!
- Why do elephants have red toenails?
Show the answer
So they can hide in cherry trees. Have you ever seen an elephant in a cherry tree? No? Then it works.
- What do you call a snowman in summer?
Show the answer
A puddle.
- Why did the horse bring a ladder?
Show the answer
It wanted to get up to the hayloft.
- What is the difference between a bus and a banana?
Show the answer
You can't peel a bus.
- Which bow can never be tied?
Show the answer
A rainbow.
- Why did Dad take a pencil to bed?
Show the answer
To draw the curtains.
How to make up your own riddles with your child
The best riddle is the one your child made up, and it is easier than it sounds. Pick an object in the room. List three things that are true about it without saying what it is: it has four legs, it has a back, it cannot run. Twist the last one into something unexpected, and you have a riddle about a chair. Six-year-olds manage it after a couple of tries, and from eight they make their own that are better than the ones in this list, because they notice things adults have stopped seeing.
Keep a riddle book in the kitchen. Every time your child makes one up, write it down with the date. In a year it is a book you cannot throw away, and your child will read it aloud to Grandma.
Riddles at a party and as a quiz walk
At a party for six- to eight-year-olds, riddles work best as a breather between two wild games: everyone sits on the sofa, you read one riddle at a time and whoever answers correctly reads the next. For a Halloween games for kids the tricky ones are perfect, read with a torch under your chin. And as a Tipspromenad for kids: twelve riddles on separate sheets along a loop through the park, three answer options, and one team per answer sheet. It is the quiz walk that gets even the adults to stop at every station.
How we do it with our families
A nanny who comes on the same days every week knows which riddles your child has already heard. It sounds like a small thing, but it is the difference between "I know that one" and "another one!" Esther picks up a five-year-old in Täby on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the riddles in the car home from förskola (municipal preschool, from age one) have become a little tradition: three riddles from Esther, then one from the five-year-old. She started on level one in August and is now on the clock and the map. The riddle book on the fridge holds her first one of her own, about a toothbrush: it has hair but no head. Esther wrote it down with the date, and her mum read it aloud to Grandma that same weekend.
Would you like a nanny who comes on the same days every week and whom your children know? Book a free first meeting with the nanny in your home, and we will put together a quote for your hours.
Read more: Riddles that work for both adults and children · Brain teasers for children · The first time with a babysitter · FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Which riddles suit a three-year-old?
Riddles about things in the room: What has four legs but cannot walk? What has a neck but no head? Three-year-olds need to be able to point at the answer, so ask the riddle at the kitchen table where the table, the comb and the bottle are. Save the puns for age six or seven, when your child understands that one word can mean two things.
Why are riddles good for children?
They train vocabulary, logic and the ability to see things from more than one angle. A child who gets that a towel gets wetter the more it dries has just understood that the same word can mean two things, and that is the beginning of reading between the lines. On top of that, your child learns that it is fun to think about something for a long time, which is one of the most useful things there is.
How do you make up your own riddles?
Pick an object, list three of its features without saying what it is, and twist one of them into something unexpected. A chair: has four legs, has a back, cannot run. Children from six can do it on their own after a few tries, and they quickly get better than adults, because they notice things we have stopped seeing. Write them down in a book.
Can the riddles be printed out?
Select, copy and paste into a document, and you can print the levels you want. If you print the page straight from the browser, the folded answers do not come along, which actually suits a quiz walk nicely: the children get the riddles, you keep the answers on the screen. For a party, twelve riddles on separate sheets is plenty.
How many riddles can a child manage in one go?
Five to ten, depending on age. A three-year-old is happy after three, an eight-year-old wants ten and then wants to ask five of their own. Stop while your child still wants more, and they will ask for riddles again tomorrow. And mix the levels: an easy one they solve straight away, then a harder one, then an easy one again.