Loosen up your mind! Boost creativity with lateral thinking quizzes for elementary school students

Because Akira is a child, their family prepares meals for them.

Akira is a child who doesn’t work, so he can’t earn money. However, his family prepares meals for him, so he gets to eat until he’s full every day. The key to this quiz is that it says “Akira” and not “Akira-kun.” Many people might have assumed Akira was an adult because of the word “work.”

Because that person had no hair.

The person was bald, so they didn’t have any hair to begin with. That’s why even if they got caught in the rain, their hair didn’t get wet. It’s a tricky question, isn’t it? It’s a very funny quiz, but don’t try it on a school principal who has no hair! People with lots of hair might be the ones who don’t get it!

Because I'm reading it as an e-book.

They weren’t being mean by refusing to lend the book—it was because they were reading an e-book. Unlike a paper book, you can’t just hand over an e-book to someone. This puzzle is a creative thinking exercise that even elementary school kids can enjoy, where you reach the answer by looking beyond fixed ideas. Because it uses familiar items like e-books and paper books as its theme, learners can experience the fun of thinking in a relatable way.

Because I'm short and couldn't reach the button for the 12th floor.

If you try to answer based only on the problem statement, you might end up heading in the wrong direction, right? The reason they got off on the 7th floor was because they couldn’t reach the button for the 12th floor. Maybe the person who got in the elevator and tried to press the button was a small child. Imagining that scene feels heartwarming. Asking a question that reveals the person is short might get you closer to the correct answer.

When you write 'alphabet' in English, the last letter is 't'.

The alphabet starts with A, right? But the last letter isn’t Z—it’s “t.” If you hear the answer without figuring it out, you might wonder “why?” In English, “alphabet” is spelled “alphabet.” It begins with A, but the last letter is “t.” The key seems to be the idea of transforming words and asking questions that lead you to the answer.

Because I was told about the dirt on my face when there was no mirror

The “bad part” is “the dirt on one’s own face.” The child, who hadn’t noticed because there was no mirror, was grateful to the teacher for pointing out the dirt—an example of a shift in perspective. Whether you’re a boy or a girl, it’s good to pay attention to daily grooming. It’s also a question where “having the doctor find what’s wrong” should be accepted as correct!

It was a calendar with the schedule written on it, and it happened to be right when the month was changing.

If you tear up a sheet of paper with school events written on it, your parents would probably get angry, right? But sometimes you won’t get scolded. One type of paper that’s okay to tear is a calendar. When the month or date changes, you switch to the next month or day, don’t you? Far from getting angry, they might even praise you for tearing off the calendar page and say, “Thanks, that was thoughtful.”