Brain Teasers for Kids
Among the various methods of learning, brain teasers and games prove to be more effective when you compare them to reading. Because they encourage student participation, the game teasers help to retain the content students learn. It is also a method that encourages students to focus on the subject.
What Are Brain Teasers?
Many types of learning games exist, but they are in different categories, and they focus on improving various skills in students. In simple language, brain teasers are riddles or puzzles that involve the brain in active thinking.
The brain teasers vary in their complexity. Some of them can be straightforward yet tricky. Once you get to know the answers, you will be surprised that you could not solve such simple puzzles.
We have collected some brain teasers in this post that you can use to test how sharp your brain is. You will also find their answers at the end of the job. But before that, let us learn more about brain teasers and how they benefit kids.
Why Brain Teasers Are Good for Kids
As a parent or teacher, you may want your kids to learn quickly. You would also be glad if they would retain the information they learn for a long time. Then brain teasers are what you should incorporate into your child’s study schedule.
Brain teasers are ideal for learning in many ways, and here are some of the reasons you should start using them daily on your kids.
1. It Helps in Improving Brain Concentration
Brain games and teasers are often tricky, and the kid has to deeply analyze the information before they come up with the solutions. The solution to the problem in the teaser may not be straightforward. Therefore, a person should engage the brain fully and assess various possibilities to identify what is hidden in the riddle.
In the event of engaging the brain to solve the mystery, the kid has to shun all distractions. And, through that, they can concentrate on the tasks at hand. Consistent brain training will help you develop concentration skills that will help in the kids’ studies and their future endeavors.
2. They Improve the Kids’ Memory
Memory is crucial for anyone to accomplish their goals in life. There exist short-term memory and long-term. We all need both long and short memories for life to move smoothly. As a student, short-term memory is beneficial for their assignments, lessons, and activities. Long-term memories help them to retain the information they learn at school.
Brain teasers help students to improve their memory so that they can apply the same technique to retain the information they learn. While tackling brain games, the kid has to remember every step involved for them to give logical answers in the right order. That is the same skill they will need for their class assessment activities.
3. They Improve Problem-solving Abilities
Various academic and real-life problems require critical thinking to solve. This skill is obtainable through brain teasers that you can play with your kids. The brain teasers are deliberately twisted to confuse the learner. As they study them, their brain should work out the mystery and unlock the hidden information.
Apart from the classroom, kids will need the skill to handle situations they may come across while they are on an adventure. The riddles also prepare them to face life in the future so that they can easily manage personal life, career, and family issues.
4. Brain Teasers Teach Kids Vocabulary Skills
Building up vocabulary is the core of language development. Kids need to learn new words each day to make their conversations clear. Vocabulary skills also help school-going kids to write better, learn faster, and improve their academic performance.
Various brain teasers teach learners to improve their vocabulary. The crosswords are familiar brain games for vocabulary build-up. Students can use the crossword answers to check their answers and see how much they score in their puzzles.
How the Brain Teasers Can Improve Students’ Vocabulary
We already know that kids need to develop their vocabulary during their early days. And, apart from language practice, brain teasers are useful for developing their knowledge.
Here are how brain teasers can help your kids to learn more vocabulary for their daily use in enhancing their early academic years.
1. Learning Word Associations
Brain teasers with word associations are sets of words that your kids need to learn and relate with each other. They can also read a group of words to identify another word that commonly associated with the list you provide.
2. Learning Sounds
As part of learning vocabulary, your kid should pronounce words correctly to mark the different meanings with the homographs they learn. These brain games may involve different other words to teach the sounds. Rhyming may play a role in preparing the sounds of the vocabulary your kids are learning.
3. Word Spellings
Some games like the crossword help your kids to learn the correct spelling of the words. You have to get the right word and spelling to complete the crossword accurately. But spelling games are not limited to crosswords.
You can use a “mystery word” game to teach spellings by forming words from letters from a list of other words.
4. Word Formation
Apart from taking letters from other words to create a new vocabulary, you can teach your kids to create new words by using rhyming sounds. They can also form new words by rearranging the letters in a given word. You may want to provide the meaning or descriptions of the intended words to help your kid come up with the correct vocabulary.
20 Examples of Brain Teasers for Your Kids
Once you are ready to start with brain teasers for your kid, here are 20 common words and brain games to start you off. They will teach your kids different skills to enhance their academics and life skills. You will find the answers at the end of the teasers. Try them out before checking the answers.
1. There is a red house, a blue house, and a white house. The red house is to the right and the blue house is to the left of the house that is in the middle. Where is the White House?
2. Mr. Bigger and his wife, Mrs. Bigger, have a baby. Who is more prominent among them?
3. Martin, the butcher, is 5’ 9” in height. He wears shoes number 10 and his waist is 32”. What does he weigh?
4. A year has 12 months. Seven months have 31 days. How many months have 28 days?
5. You have 16 green balls in a sack. In the same bag, there are also 16 yellow balls. How many times must you draw to get a guaranteed matching pair of the same color?
6. Robbin’s family lives on the 8th floor of an apartment in town. Every day, Robbin’s son, Mike, uses the elevator to come down to the ground floor when going to school. After school, Mike uses the elevator from the ground floor to the 5th floor and walks on the stairs to the 8th floor. Why does he do that?
7. One stormy night, a tragic plane accident occurred and the plane crashed at the border of Canada and the United States. Where do you think they buried the survivors?
8. John was crossing the road. There were no lights on the way, and the moon had not come up yet. A car came speeding, but when it came close to John, it stopped. How did the driver see John if the headlights of his vehicle were off?
9. You are driving a yellow bus from Houston to San Antonio. There are six passengers on the bus. On the first bus stop, one woman alights and a man boards. You get to the next stop, the bus drops two men and picks two school children and a police officer. At the next stop, the police officer alights, a mother gets on the bus with her twin children, and it starts raining. Can you guess the age of the bus driver?
10. I am very precious to people. But if you so much as whisper my name, I die. Who am I?
11. What is it that you can hold without touching with your hands?
12. When you have it, you badly want to share it. But the moment you share it, you lose it completely. What is “it”?
13. Imagine that you are in a room without a door. There are no windows, either. The room starts filling with water, and the walls are too tall to climb out. How do you get out of this situation?
14. 8 549 632 017 is a unique number. Why?
15. Steve’s mother has four sons. The eldest is called Sunday. The second is Monday, and the third son is Tuesday. How does she call her last-born?
16. Joan was on an island, which is 2 miles from the shore of the mainland. She has three pieces of rope, each measuring 6 feet. After a few minutes, gets to the mainland shore safely. How does she cross the ocean?
17. Cow, Buffalo, Goat, Dog. Which word does not belong to the list?
18. In one of the Winters, Sam visited Alaska and took photographs of the polar bears and the penguins before flying back to his home in Egypt. What is wrong with the story?
19. A farmer has 60 animals on his farm. One day, a strong storm hit the city, and all his animals but 19 ran away. How many animals remained on the farm?
20. It is dark when you get home at 10 pm. You have only one matchstick remaining. There is a kerosene lantern, a newspaper, and some sticks in the room. What should you light first?
Answers
Have you tried to solve the simple teasers? I hope you got most (if not all) of the puzzles right. Here are the answers to the puzzles.
1. Washington D.C. The White House is the residence and office of the American president.
2. The baby is a little bigger.
3. He weighs meat in the butchery.
4. All 12 months have 28 days. Many of the months have more, but none has less.
5. Only three times. Assuming the first two daws are different colors, the third ball will be either green or yellow to match one of the balls you already drew out.
6. Because Mike cannot reach the buttons above 5.
7. Nowhere. People do not bury survivors.
8. It was broad daylight and the sun was bright. Nobody said it was night.
9. The bus driver’s age is your age. Remember you are the driver.
10. Silence!
11. You can hold your breath without using your hands.
12. A secret. The moment you tell it to anybody, it is not a secret again.
13. You stop imagining.
14. The number is unique because that is the only way you can arrange the digits 0-9 in their alphabetical order.
15. Steve!
16. The ocean is frozen. Joan safely walks on it to the shore.
17. Buffalo – it is a wild animal.
18. Sam could not possibly take photos of penguins in Alaska. They are only found at the South Pole.
19. 19 animals. All the farm animals ran away except the 19.
20. The matchstick.
Summary
How many of the brain teasers did you get right? As you noticed, the questions are quite simple but twisted to make your kid think before answering. You can even form your personalized items to train your kid with language and Math work.
