40 Trick Questions For Children
Trick questions are an excellent way of enhancing our children’s creativity, lateral and abstract thinking, and creative abilities. The main objective of these questions is to make them think and reflect. Moreover, they’ll realize how they can sometimes make mistakes when processing information too quickly and superficially.
You can also have a go at answering these questions yourself. After all, at the end of the day, not everything is as obvious as you might think. Indeed, you often immerse yourself in automation, without realizing that it can lead you to make mistakes.
40 of the best trick questions for children
Below we show you a total of 40 trick questions on various topics, for children of different ages.
1. Why is the math book sad?
Because it has so many unsolved problems.
2. What has an eye, but can’t see?
A needle.
3. How many months have 28 days?
All of them, right through from January to December… What a trick!
4. What gets wet while it dries?
A towel.
5. What can’t you eat before breakfast?
Lunch and dinner.
6. What color are the sleeves of Jenny’s red vest?
Vests don’t have sleeves.
7. If in a race, you overtake the person who’s second, what position will you be in?
Although the first answer that probably comes to mind is the first position, don’t be fooled. Overtaking second place puts you in second place!
8. What has words but never speaks?
A book. And how many words it has!
9. What weighs more: a kilo of feathers or a kilo of lead?
Both weigh the same. It’s one kilo, regardless of the type of material.
10. What goes up but never down?
Age.
11. What has a face and two hands, but no arms or legs?
A clock.
12. What’s the longest day of the week?
If we’re talking about time, they’re all the same. However, if we speak in terms of word length, the prize goes to Wednesday.
13. What has a thumb and four fingers, but isn’t a living thing?
A glove.
14. What can you have without touching it?
A conversation. Actually, there are dozens of valid answers here. It’s a chance for children to explore the limits of their imaginations.
15. What has many holes, but is filled with liquid?
A sponge.
16. What has teeth, but can’t eat?
A comb.
17. What has a neck, but no head?
A bottle.
18. What gets bigger and bigger the more you take away from it?
A hole in the ground.
19. What goes up and down, but never moves?
A staircase.
20. The more you have of me, the less you’ll see: what am I?
Darkness.
21. Where can you find an ocean, but not water?
On a map.
22. What has a face but no body?
A coin.
23. What happens if you throw a white hat into the Black Sea?
It gets wet.
24. Why are ghosts bad at lying?
Because you can see through them.
25. What’s in front of you but you can’t see?
The future. This question promotes children’s learning and understanding of time.
26. What goes down, but never up?
The rain.
27. What gets wetter as it rains?
The ocean.
28. What allows you to instantly look through a wall?
A window.
29. What goes up and down every day without moving?
The temperature.
30. What do you always have to buy two of?
A pair of gloves. Like some of our other tricky questions, there are other possible answers here, like shoes or socks.
31. What can you catch, but never throw?
A cold.
32. What dies if you give it a drink, but lives if you feed it?
Fire.
33. If a plane crashes on the border between Spain and France, where are the survivors buried?
Nowhere. The survivors are alive.
34. How can you go 20 days without sleep?
By sleeping at night.
35. Who’s never lost a soccer game?
The referee.
36. What’s the only way to fill a keg to make it weigh less?
Fill it with holes.
37. What’s the one question that no one can answer in the affirmative?
Are you asleep?
38. What’s the first thing everyone does when they wake up?
Open their eyes.
39. What number, if you take half away equals zero?
The number 8.
40. Who can speak every language in the world?
An echo.
That completes our compilation of 40 of the best trick questions for children. Several of them have multiple answers, so don’t hesitate to explore all the possibilities to encourage their creativity (and yours).
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- Egan, Kieran (2010). La imaginación: una olvidada caja de herramientas del aprendizaje. Praxis Educativa (Arg), XIV (14), 12-16. [Fecha de Consulta 16 de Diciembre de 2021]. ISSN: 0328-9702. Disponible en: https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=153115865002
- Fandakova, Y., & Gruber, M. J. States of curiosity and interest enhance memory differently in adolescents and in children. Developmental Science. 2021; 24(1), e13005.