Marytale
150 Riddles for Kids with Answers
150 riddles
A riddle is not a quiz. A quiz asks what a child knows; a riddle asks them to look at something ordinary from a different side — and the pleasure is in the turn, not in being right. That is why the best riddles have answers a five-year-old already owns: a candle, an egg, their own shadow.
All 150 here were chosen for ages four to ten. The easy and animal riddles we wrote ourselves; many of the funny, what-am-I and math ones are classics that have been passed around for generations, and we picked the ones whose answers a child today can still picture and reworded them where they needed it. Old printed collections are full of plows, spindles and village trades, and we left those out.
The answers are hidden, not removed: tap «Show the answer» once you have had a guess. Reading it too early only spoils the riddle for you.
A funny riddle and a clever riddle are not the same thing. A clever one makes a child think; a funny one makes them think, then groan, then immediately go and try it on somebody else. The groan is the point.
What has to be broken before you can use it?
Show the answer
An egg
What gets wetter the more it dries?
Show the answer
A towel
What has a neck but no head?
Show the answer
A bottle
Easy does not mean short. It means the answer is something the child already owns — the sun, their shoes, a spoon, their own shadow. A four-year-old cannot reason their way to an answer they have never thought about, but they can recognize one they see every day, and recognizing it feels exactly as good as solving it.
I follow you everywhere in sunshine and vanish when the clouds come.
Show the answer
Your shadow
I am round and yellow, I get up before you and go to bed after you.
Show the answer
The sun
I come out at night and change my shape every week.
Show the answer
The moon
A math riddle is not a sum with a story around it. The arithmetic in a good one is easy enough that a seven-year-old can do it in their head — the difficulty is realizing which sum to do, and that is a completely different skill from the one school is drilling.
A farmer has 17 sheep. All but 9 run away. How many are left?
Show the answer
Nine. «All but nine» means nine stayed
There were three candles burning. The wind blew two of them out. How many candles are left?
Show the answer
Three. Blowing one out does not remove it
If you have one match and you walk into a dark room with a lamp, a stove and a candle, what do you light first?
Show the answer
The match
The «what am I» riddle is the one shape a child can copy straight away, and that makes it the most useful kind on the site. The object talks about itself, gives three clues, and asks. Nothing else is needed.
I am tall when I am young and short when I am old. What am I?
Show the answer
A candle
I have a head and a tail but no body at all. What am I?
Show the answer
A coin
I go through towns and over hills and I never move. What am I?
Show the answer
A road
Animal riddles are the easiest kind for a young child, and the reason is not that animals are simple. It is that the child already has the picture. A riddle about a penguin arrives with the penguin standing in the room, so the only work left is matching the clues to it.
I sleep all day, I hunt at night, and I turn my head almost all the way around.
Show the answer
An owl
I have black and white stripes and no two of us are striped the same.
Show the answer
A zebra
I carry my house on my back and I am never in a hurry.
Show the answer
A snail
How to ask them at each age
Ages 4 to 6. Only riddles whose answer is in the room, or nearly. At this age a riddle is a looking game, not a thinking one: ask the shadow riddle in sunlight, the egg riddle at breakfast, the clock riddle while waiting. A child who can see the answer will find it, and finding it is what makes them want another.
Ages 7 to 8. Now the wordplay lands — the ones where a word means two things, and the ones where the trick is in how the question is phrased. Do not help too quickly. The ten seconds of silence after a riddle feel long to an adult and are the whole point for a child.
Ages 9 to 10. The math ones and the turn-it-around game: the child makes the riddle and you guess. Their first attempt will give the answer away in the first line, and that is normal — spotting why it gave the answer away teaches more about riddles than fifty solved ones.
After the riddles, a story: illustrated bedtime stories on Marytale
The riddles in this section were chosen and written by Marytale for children aged 4 to 10. The easy and animal riddles are our own. Many of the funny, what-am-I and math riddles are traditional — classics like the riddle of the Sphinx belong to everyone — and we picked them and reworded them for children. The selection and wording are ours. Chosen and written by Marytale.