Riddle Me This: 49 Easy-ish Riddles for Kids

1. What has hands but cannot write or clap?

Answer: A clock. 

2. What has stripes and goes through the air?

Hint: It sometimes goes on the ground, too.!

Answer: A  basketball.

3. I am yellow and I write, and my mate is white.

Answer: A pencil.

4. What gets wetter the more it dries?

Answer: A towel.

5. What always ends up broken before you use it?

Answer: An egg.

6. What begins with T ends with T and has a T in it?

Answer: A teapot.

7. What breaks as soon as you say its name?

Answer: Silence.

8. If you threw a yellow stone into a blue sea, what would it become?

Answer: Wet.

9. How do you make the number “one” disappear?

Answer: Add a “g” and it is “gone.”

10. What bank never has any money?

Answer:  A river bank. 

11. What number is odd until you take away one letter; then it becomes even?

Answer: Seven.

12. There is one word spelled wrong in every English dictionary. What is it?

Answer: Wrong. 

13. What goes in your pocket but keeps it empty?

Answer: A hole. 

14. What belongs to you but is used most often by everyone else?

Answer: Your name. 

15. What is as big as a hippo but weighs nothing at all?

Answer: A hippo’s shadow. 

16. What has legs but cannot walk?

Answer: A chair. 

17. I sometimes run but cannot walk. You follow me around. What am I?

Answer: Your nose. 

18. What word begins and ends with the E but only has one letter?

Answer: Envelope. 

19. What do you find at the end of a rainbow?

Answer: The letter W. 

20. If an electric train is traveling 60 MPH and going against the wind, which way will the train’s smoke drift?

Answer: There is no smoke from an electric train. 

21. What runs but cannot walk, has a mouth but no teeth and has a bed but cannot sleep?

Answer: A river. 

22. There was a circle house. There was a chef, a nanny, a butler, two children, and a maid. The boy child was found dead. The nanny said she was playing with the girl, the chef said he was cooking dinner and the maid said she was dusting the corners. So who killed the boy? 

Answer: The maid because she was lying about dusting corners. A circle house has no corners. 

—submitted by Joshua Y., age 9

23. Why did the kid bury his walkie talkie? 

Answer: Because the batteries died. 

24. What kind of ship has two mates but no captain?

Answer: A relationship. 

25. I’m taller when I’m young, shorter when I’m old. What am I?

Answer: A candle. 

26. What is easier to get into than out of?

Answer: Trouble. 

27. Two fathers and two sons went fishing. They only caught 3 fish, but they caught one fish each. How is this possible?

Answer: It was a grandfather, father, and a grandson/son. (Both the grandfather and father are fathers and both the father and grandson ore sons). 

28. What is always right in front of you, yet you cannot see it?

Answer: The future. 

29. What has a tongue but cannot talk?

A shoe. 

30. What can you hold in your right hand but never your left hand?

Answer: Your left hand. 

31. What has four eyes but cannot see?

Answer: MISSISSIPPI 

32. What has a neck but no head and arms but no hands?

Answer: A shirt. 

33. Remove my skin and I won’t cry, but you might! 

Answer: An onion.

34. A cowboy comes into town on Friday. He stays two nights at a local hotel. He leaves on Friday. How is this possible?

Answer: His horse’s name is Friday. 

35. What goes through tunnels and over hills but doesn’t move?

Answer: A road. 

36. A woman is sitting in his cabin in Minnesota. In less than three hours, she’s in her cabin in Texas. How can this be?

Answer: The woman is a pilot and she’s sitting in the cabin of her airplane. 

37. I can be cracked or played; told or made. What am I?

Answer: A joke! 

38. I give you one, and you have two or none. What am I?

Answer: A choice. 

39. A man holds $5.50 in his hand, but only has one coin. How is this possible?

Answer: He has a $5 bill and one 50 cent piece. 

40. How many months of the year have 28 days?

Answer: All of them (they all have at least 28 days). 

41. I am loved, for I am sweet

I come in many forms

but I’m always a treat

before apple and after cotton

dentists contend that I’ll

make your teeth rotten

What am I?

+++

Answer: Candy

—from young reader Gloria, age 8

42. What is so delicate that it breaks when you say its name?

Answer: Silence. 

43. Mr. Red and Ms. Red live in the red house, Mr. Purple and Ms. Purple live in the purple house. Who lives in the white house? 

Answer: The President! 

—from young reader Gwen I

44. What has a head and a tail but no body?

A coin. 

—Young reader Katelyn

45. When is “L” be greater than “XL”?

Answer: When you use Roman numerals.

46. What is always on the dinner table but you cannot eat it?

A plate. (Or a fork, etc.)

47. I fall but I never get hurt. 

Snow. 

48. If you feed me, I grow, but if you give me water, I die.

Fire

—Young reader Sai Sri Vallabh

49. What’s full of holes but still holds water? 

A sponge.