Tricky Riddles for Kids

Ten tricky riddles for kids with answers under a cover: spot the trap, then tap Show answer.

What begins with E, ends with E and usually holds one letter?
Four friends take six hours to build a snow fort. How long would two friends take to build that same fort?
How many seconds are there in a year?
What do you find once in June, twice in November and never in May?
Spell out every number from one to ninety-nine. How many times do you write the letter A?
Ten birds sit on a fence. A loud clap frightens three of them. How many stay on the fence?
What can you hold in your right hand but never in your left hand?
What is the difference between here and there?
A clerk in a butcher shop is six feet tall and wears size ten shoes. What does he weigh?
Which word means heavy forward and no backward?

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How it works

Each of these tricky riddles for kids is easy once you see the trap, and the trap is always one small word: a rooster that lays an egg, the end of a rainbow, a month with 28 days.

Read the full guide

The kinds of trap

The menu under the button keeps one kind. Trick questions send you after the wrong idea. Letter and spelling tricks are about the word, not the thing. Number tricks tempt you to add or subtract. Look again hides the answer in how the riddle is worded.

Catch a grown-up with one

Tap Show answer and read the line under it: it names the trap in one sentence. Then try the riddle on a parent. Read it at normal speed and keep a straight face. If they fall in, read them the trap line.

Tips

Give one clue only: say which word to listen to again.
Print gives ten riddles with a line under each and the answers on a page of their own.

Questions and answers

What are some tricky riddles for kids?

Three to start with. Where does Friday come before Thursday? In a dictionary. What will you always find at the end of a rainbow? The letter W. A bowl holds six apples and you take away four: how many do you have? Four.

What makes a riddle tricky?

A word that sends you the wrong way. Take away makes you subtract, a rooster makes you picture an egg, the end of a rainbow makes you picture gold. The riddle is fair: everything you need is in its words.

What age are these tricky riddles for?

About 7 to 12, by the editors' judgment. The traps sit in words a second grader knows, and the number tricks use small sums. Younger children enjoy hearing them and trying them on someone else.

How do you solve a trick question?

Read it again slowly, one word at a time, and ask what each word is doing there. Look for a small word such as into, it, in or all but. Then say the question aloud: some traps are in the sound.

All 80 riddles

Trick questions 20

A bus driver goes the wrong way down a one-way street, right past a police officer, and is not stopped. Why? Answer: The bus driver is walking. The trap is picturing the bus, which the riddle never mentions.
A clerk in a butcher shop is six feet tall and wears size ten shoes. What does he weigh? Answer: Meat. The trap is the height and the shoes, which make you think of his own weight.
A girl falls off a twenty-foot ladder and is not hurt at all. How? Answer: She fell off the bottom rung. The trap is the height: the riddle never says how high she had climbed.
A man walks in the rain with no hat, no hood and no umbrella, and not one hair on his head gets wet. How? Answer: He is bald. The trap is picturing hair that is not there.
A pony is tied to a rope six feet long, and a bucket of oats stands ten feet away. The pony eats the oats anyway. How? Answer: The other end of the rope is not tied to anything. The trap is picturing a post: the riddle never says what the rope is tied to.
A red house is made of red bricks and a yellow house is made of yellow bricks. What is a greenhouse made of? Answer: Glass. The trap is the pattern of colors: a greenhouse is a glass house for plants.
A rider comes to town on Friday, stays three nights and rides out on Friday. How? Answer: The horse is named Friday. The trap is hearing Friday as a day both times.
A rooster sits on the very top of a barn roof and lays an egg. Which way does the egg roll? Answer: It does not roll, because there is no egg. The trap is the rooster: only hens lay eggs.
An electric train heads north while the wind blows from the west. Which way does the smoke drift? Answer: There is no smoke. The trap is the wind: an electric train burns nothing.
How can you drop a raw egg onto a concrete floor without cracking it? Answer: Any way you like: a concrete floor is very hard to crack. The trap is the word it, which can mean the floor.
How can you throw a ball as hard as you can and have it come back to you without hitting anything? Answer: Throw it straight up. The trap is picturing a wall: a ball thrown straight up falls back down to you.
How many apples grow on a tree? Answer: All of them. The trap is hunting for a number: every apple grows on a tree.
Maya's mother has three children. The first is called April and the second is called May. What is the third child called? Answer: Maya. The trap is the pattern: you expect June, but the riddle named Maya at the start.
What can you hold in your right hand but never in your left hand? Answer: Your left elbow. The trap: your left hand cannot reach its own elbow.
What can you put into a heavy bucket of sand to make it lighter? Answer: A hole. The trap is the words put into: a hole lets the sand out.
What do you take off last before you climb into bed? Answer: Your feet off the floor. The trap is thinking only of clothes.
What two things can you never eat for breakfast? Answer: Lunch and dinner. The trap is thinking of foods, when the answer is other meals.
Where does Friday come before Thursday? Answer: In a dictionary. The trap is the calendar: in A to Z order, F comes before T.
You hop off the bottom step. What should you land on? Answer: Your feet. The trap is hunting for something soft.
You walk into a dark cabin with one match. Inside are a candle, an oil lamp and a fireplace. What do you light first? Answer: The match. The trap is the list of three things, which hides the match you need for all of them.

Letter and spelling tricks 20

How do you make the word one disappear? Answer: Put a G in front of it, and it is gone. The trap is the number: G plus one spells gone.
How do you spell candy with two letters? Answer: C and Y. The trap is in saying it aloud: C-and-Y.
How do you spell hard water with three letters? Answer: I, C, E. The trap is the spelling: hard water is ice.
How do you spell mousetrap with just three letters? Answer: C, A, T. The trap is the spelling: a cat is a mousetrap.
How many letters are there in the alphabet? Answer: Eleven. The trap is counting A to Z: the words the alphabet have 3 plus 8 letters.
I am three sevenths of chicken, two thirds of cat and two fourths of goat. Which city am I? Answer: Chicago. The trap is the fractions: take the first letters CHI, CA and GO.
Railroad crossing, look out for the cars. Can you spell that without any R? Answer: T, H, A, T. The trap is the long sentence: you were only asked to spell the word that.
What begins with E, ends with E and usually holds one letter? Answer: An envelope. The trap is the word letter, which here means mail.
What do you find once in June, twice in November and never in May? Answer: The letter E. The trap is thinking of weather: count the letter E in each month.
What is always at the start of school and at the end of class? Answer: The letter S. The trap is thinking of bells: look at the words school and class.
What is in seasons, seconds, centuries and minutes, but not in decades, years or days? Answer: The letter N. The trap is time again: check each word for an N.
What is the capital in France? Answer: The letter F. The trap is one small word: the capital in France, not of France.
What is the difference between here and there? Answer: The letter T. The trap is thinking of places: there is here with a T in front.
What starts with T, ends with T and has T in it? Answer: A teapot. The trap is hearing the letter T the third time, when it means tea.
What will you always find at the end of a rainbow? Answer: The letter W. The trap is the pot of gold: the word rainbow ends in W.
Which animal goes from Z to A? Answer: A zebra. The trap is the alphabet backward: the word zebra starts with Z and ends with A.
Which five-letter word sounds the same after you take four letters away? Answer: Queue. The trap is expecting a change: queue sounds just like its first letter, Q.
Which letter of the alphabet is never me? Answer: The letter U. The trap is in the sound: U sounds like you.
Which word is spelled wrong in every dictionary? Answer: The word wrong. The trap is hearing a mistake: w-r-o-n-g is how you spell wrong.
Which word means heavy forward and no backward? Answer: Ton, which is not read backward. The trap is expecting two words: one word does both jobs.

Number tricks 20

A bowl holds six apples and you take away four. How many apples do you have? Answer: Four. The trap is subtracting: you have the four you took.
A brick weighs one pound plus half a brick. How much does the brick weigh? Answer: Two pounds. The trap is answering a pound and a half: if half a brick is one pound, a whole one is two.
A farmer has five haystacks in one field and four in another. She rakes them all together. How many haystacks does she have now? Answer: One. The trap is adding: put together, they make one big haystack.
A shepherd has 17 sheep, and all but 9 wander off. How many does she have left? Answer: Nine. The trap is subtracting: all but 9 means 9 stayed.
Divide 30 by one half and add 10. What do you get? Answer: 70. The trap is halving: 30 divided by one half is 60.
Grandma gives you three cookies and tells you to eat one every half hour. How long until the last one is gone? Answer: One hour. The trap is three times thirty: you eat the first cookie right away.
How many seconds are there in a year? Answer: Twelve. The trap is multiplying: January 2nd, February 2nd, and so on.
How many times can you take 5 away from 25? Answer: Once. The trap is dividing: after the first time you are taking 5 away from 20.
How many two-cent stamps are there in a dozen? Answer: Twelve. The trap is dividing by two: a dozen of anything is twelve.
If two is company and three is a crowd, what are four and five? Answer: Nine. The trap is the saying: four and five are simply nine.
Multiply together all the numbers on a telephone keypad. What do you get? Answer: Zero. The trap is starting the long sum: the keypad has a 0, and anything times 0 is 0.
One egg takes six minutes to boil. How long do three eggs take in the same pot? Answer: Six minutes. The trap is multiplying: the eggs boil at the same time.
Some months have 31 days and some have 30. How many months have 28 days? Answer: All twelve. The trap is February: every month has at least 28 days.
Ten birds sit on a fence. A loud clap frightens three of them. How many stay on the fence? Answer: Most likely none. The trap is subtracting: when three birds take off, the rest fly too.
Two mothers and two daughters share three muffins, and each one gets a whole muffin. How? Answer: They are a grandmother, a mother and a daughter. The trap is counting four people: the mother is also a daughter.
When can you add 2 to 11 and get 1? Answer: On a clock. The trap is plain arithmetic: two hours after 11 o'clock it is 1 o'clock.
Which is more, six dozen dozen or half a dozen dozen? Answer: Six dozen dozen. The trap is that they sound alike: one is 6 times 12 times 12, the other is 6 times 12.
Which number gives the same answer whatever you multiply it by? Answer: Zero. The trap is trying big numbers: zero times anything is zero.
Which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of bricks? Answer: They weigh the same. The trap is picturing bricks: a pound is a pound.
Why are 2020 pennies worth more than 2019 pennies? Answer: There is one more penny. The trap is reading the numbers as years.

Look again 20

A basket holds five oranges. How can five children each take one orange and still leave one in the basket? Answer: The last child takes the basket with the orange in it. The trap is thinking the basket must stay behind: the fifth orange is still in it.
A cat has three kittens named Mopsy, Topsy and Spot. What is the mother's name. Answer: What. The trap is the missing question mark: the sentence tells you her name is What.
A king, a queen and two twins all lie in one big room, yet there is nobody in the room. How? Answer: They are all beds. The trap is picturing people: king, queen and twin are sizes of bed.
A rope ladder hangs over the side of a boat, and its bottom rung just touches the water. The tide rises one foot an hour. How many rungs are under water after three hours? Answer: None. The trap is doing the sum: the boat floats up with the tide, and the ladder with it.
Four friends take six hours to build a snow fort. How long would two friends take to build that same fort? Answer: No time at all: it is already built. The trap is doing the sum: the words that same fort mean the one that is already standing.
How can half of 8 be 3? Answer: Cut the figure 8 down the middle from top to bottom. The trap is dividing: each half of the written figure looks like a 3.
I had six eggs. I broke two, I cooked two and I ate two. How many eggs are left? Answer: Four. The trap is counting six: the two I broke are the two I cooked and ate.
In a one-story house the walls are yellow, the doors are yellow and the floors are yellow. What color are the stairs? Answer: There are no stairs. The trap is the list of yellow things: a one-story house needs no stairs.
Name three days in a row without saying Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Answer: Yesterday, today and tomorrow. The trap is thinking only of the names of the weekdays.
Say silk five times out loud. Now answer fast: what do cows drink? Answer: Water. The trap is the rhyme: silk pushes you toward milk.
Say toast five times out loud. Now answer fast: what do you put in a toaster? Answer: Bread. The trap is the echo: it becomes toast only when it comes out.
Spell out every number from one to ninety-nine. How many times do you write the letter A? Answer: Not once. The trap is starting to count: the letter A first turns up in one thousand.
Spell the word shop out loud. Now answer fast: what do you do at a green light? Answer: Go. The trap is the rhyme: shop pushes you toward stop.
What do the numbers 11, 69 and 88 have in common? Answer: They read the same upside down. The trap is doing arithmetic on them: turn the page around.
What do you sit on, sleep on and brush your teeth with? Answer: A chair, a bed and a toothbrush. The trap is hunting for one thing that does all three.
What has four letters, sometimes has nine letters, but never has five letters. Answer: Nothing: every part of that sentence is true. The trap is the missing question mark: what has 4 letters, sometimes has 9 and never has 5.
What letter comes next: J, F, M, A, M, J? Answer: J. The trap is the alphabet: these are the first letters of the months, and July is next.
Which is correct: the yolk of an egg is white, or the yolk of an egg are white? Answer: Neither one. The trap is the grammar: a yolk is yellow.
Which two words hold the most letters? Answer: Post office. The trap is counting the alphabet: these letters come in envelopes.
You are driving a bus. Four people get on at the first stop, two get off at the second and five get on at the third. What color are the bus driver's eyes? Answer: The color of your own eyes. The trap is counting passengers: the first words made you the driver.

How this list was compiled

Written by the Game Night Generator editors on October 3, 2026: 80 trick-question riddles for children of about 7 to 12, in four sets of 20. Trick questions of this kind are traditional and belong to nobody; each one here is retold in the editors' own words, with names and numbers of our own, and none was copied from a collection. The trap is always in a word a child knows, and the line under each answer names it in one sentence. The letter and number riddles were checked by counting: the letters in each word named and every sum. Riddles that our sister site's riddle pages already tell were taken out. The age range is the editors' judgment; nobody tested the riddles with a class. Licence: own work