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[For Elementary School Students] Great for Brain Training! Try These Addictive Matchstick Puzzles
A handy matchstick quiz you can use to pass the time or as a fun moment in conversations with friends.
With simple materials and a bit of creativity, it’s a popular brain teaser that even elementary school kids can enjoy.
From puzzles that manipulate numbers and shapes to delightfully surprising “Aha!” challenges, it’s packed with riddles that captivate everyone.
This time, we’re introducing matchstick quizzes you can enjoy with your child.
Great for family fun or with friends! Try it as a group challenge or a solo activity—how would you like to enjoy it?
[For Elementary School Students] Recommended for Brain Training! Try These Addictive Matchstick Puzzles (1–10)
Matchstick puzzle: Move 2 sticks to change the direction of the goldfish.
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Move the two sticks at the bottom right to make the goldfish face upward.
When we see the phrase “change direction,” we tend to assume it means “turn 180 degrees”—right to left, up to down, and so on. If someone said “either up or down is fine” for this problem, it would click right away, wouldn’t it? Still, it’s kind of curious that with just this many matchsticks, the figure can look like a goldfish.
Matchstick puzzle: Move one stick to make it half.
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If you move the bottom matchstick of the 0 to below the space between the 1 and 0 and change its orientation, it becomes a “5.”
Because it’s half of ten, I can at least think to somehow make the shape of a “5,” but how should I move it? There’s no restriction saying “you mustn’t change the orientation,” so the shift in thinking to “let’s try changing the orientation!” is the key to solving the problem. Still, it’s a really well-crafted puzzle. I’d love to pose it to friends in my class who enjoy quizzes.
Matchstick puzzle: Move 3 sticks to make 3 squares.
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Move the two vertical matchsticks at the top to the left and right, and move the horizontal matchstick in the top center downward.
Since you only need to make three squares, it seems like there could be infinitely many answers, but if you want a neat arrangement with no surplus or shortage, there’s only one solution. Because there are no constraints regarding the leftover matchsticks, that might be the tricky part of this problem. Please try it with the mindset of “Let’s make exactly three squares with no more and no less!”
Matchstick puzzle: Move one stick to make 1.
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Move the rightmost matchstick to make “ONE.”
When you're told to “make a 1,” you’d naturally think you have to create the actual shape of the numeral “1,” right? But if you think about 1 in different ways—like “hitotsu,” “first,” “one”—your thoughts start to wander and then you go, “Aha!” That’s why it works. It’s a bit tricky for people who don’t know how to spell the English word ONE.
Matchstick puzzle: Move 5 matchsticks to create an upside-down figure.
Some matchstick puzzles can be solved purely with a spark of insight.
What’s interesting is that while some people can solve these instantly, others can’t solve them at all.
A great quiz to test that kind of intuition is this problem: move five matchsticks to create an upside-down version of the figure.
There are 15 matchsticks stacked in a pyramid shape.
How can you turn this figure upside down? It could also be fun to compete in a group to see who can solve it the fastest.
Matchstick puzzle: Move 2 sticks to make two houses.
Arrange matches into a square and add a triangle on top.
It looks like a little house, right? Now line up four of these.
From this setup, how do you move two matches to make it into two houses? By the way, you can’t break or remove any matches.
The answer is to connect the roofs and combine two houses into one.
If you actually try it, you’ll see it clearly looks like two houses.
Since it’s mainly a trompe-l’oeil style puzzle, even small children can solve it.
Matchstick puzzle: Using 12 matches, create six enclosures of equal size.
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Make it a regular hexagon
Imagine pens that hold one animal each, and think about building them with 12 matchsticks. We tend to try making them as squares, but let’s shift that thinking. A triangular pen only needs three matchsticks, so… with a clever combination, you can form a regular hexagon. It’s a surprisingly tricky puzzle!