For elementary school kids! Fun riddles recommended for lower grades

10 years as a kindergarten teacher / elementary school teacher / junior and senior high school teacher / childminderkepiko
Graduated from Kunitachi College of Music, Faculty of Music (now: Department of Music Culture and Education, Early Childhood Music Education major). In elementary school, my homeroom teacher was Jun Kusaba, a game researcher. After graduating from university, I worked as a kindergarten teacher for 10 years and as an after-school childcare instructor for 7 years, then took a position as a music teacher at an international school in Singapore. In addition to music education, I engaged in activities that introduced Japanese culture, traditional games, and recreational activities, working with many children. Later, through freelance writing, planning, and editing at Shogakukan, I met many delightful adults and experienced the joy of communicating and sharing. Drawing on the perspective cultivated in the field of education and my experience as an editor, I provide practical information with an emphasis on both input and output, mainly in areas related to music and children. My hobbies include instruments, singing, handicrafts, toys, drawing, traditional games, the outdoors, and books. My special skill is spinning-top tricks.

Lively, curious lower-grade elementary school children.

They love learning new things and playing with friends.

Their thinking is still flexible, and they’re great at coming up with fun ideas.

Here, we’ll introduce riddles for elementary school kids that lower graders can enjoy.

Riddles help develop thinking skills and let you enjoy wordplay.

Have a wonderful time using your heads together with friends and family as you enjoy all kinds of fun riddles featuring familiar things!

For Elementary School Kids! Fun Riddles Recommended for Lower Grades (21–30)

What is the flower that shouts in the morning?

This is a riddle that asks for “a flower that roars in the morning.” The key to solving it is to first think of flowers that do something in the morning.

There’s a well-known flower that blooms in the morning, right? That’s right—the morning glory (asagao).

You might think, “Morning glories do act in the morning, but they don’t roar…” So why is the answer morning glory? Because it’s a pun on the sound of a roar—‘gaoo!’—which is contained in ‘asagao.’ Flowers usually bloom quietly and don’t roar, but if there really were a flower that roared, I’d love to see it at least once.

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An elevator that can hold ten people broke and fell. Yet no one was injured. Why is that?

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Because no one was riding (it)/Because nobody was on it.

If an elevator breaks and falls down, normally you’d expect serious injuries, but the key point here is that no one was inside at the time. It says it’s for ten people, but it doesn’t say anyone was riding it. In other words, no one was in the elevator, so no one was injured.

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For Elementary Schoolers! Fun Riddles Recommended for Lower Grades (31–40)

Five people are playing hide-and-seek. Two have been found. How many are left?

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2 people

When five people are playing hide-and-seek and two are found, that means three still haven’t been found. But one of those three is the seeker, so only two are actually hiding. The seeker is the one who looks for others, not the one who gets found, so they’re not counted.

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What part of speech is “strawberry”?

If you’re asked what language “strawberry” is, you’d naturally say English.

But this is a trick question! The answer isn’t English.

So what is it? To solve it, you need to realize it’s a trick and notice that the “go” in “nani go” (“what language”) is written in hiragana, not the kanji for “language.” And what does “strawberry” actually refer to in the first place? Once you see that, you’ll reach the answer! It’s a question that tends to be swayed by your knowledge, but a child might answer it in an instant.

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What is something you use but cannot own?

Scissors, pencils, erasers, rulers… most tools you’re familiar with are basically things you hold in your hand to use, right? So let’s try a riddle: “What can be used but cannot be held?” You might think of various tools, but you won’t easily get the right answer if you only think in terms of “objects.” First, try considering things you can use that aren’t objects.

By the way, the answer is “your name.” You use it when introducing yourself or when you want friends to know about you, but you certainly can’t “hold” it.

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What time is it now?

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two characters

When someone asks, “What time is it now?” you’d normally answer with a time like three o’clock or six o’clock, right? But this riddle is different. If you focus on the phrase “What time is it now?” itself, it contains two words—“now” and “what time”—so together it makes ‘two characters’ (ni-moji).

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Daddy frog goes ribbit-ribbit-ribbit, Mommy frog goes ribbit-ribbit, so what sound does the baby frog make?

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I won’t cry.

Young frogs are still in the tadpole stage, so they can’t croak like adult frogs. That’s why the answer is “they don’t cry/make sounds.” Comparing them to the calls of their father and mother helps you notice the differences in development. Not only appearance but also whether they can make sounds is a point of growth.

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