40 Riddles For A Fun Brain Warm-up Session

Riddles present phrases with hidden or double meanings, challenging reasoning and language skills. Solving riddles sharpens critical thinking, creativity, and knowledge expansion. VTJ will provide you with a collection of 40 fun riddles to energize minds before lessons. These brain teasers require careful observation, inference, and lateral thinking to arrive at clever solutions.

What are Diddles?

Riddles are not simple questions, they are phrases that have a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved.

It is a useful intellectual playground in words. On that playground, participants sharpen their thinking ability, judgment and practice their ability to use language flexibly in all circumstances.

Riddles do not only have the effect of developing thinking, expanding knowledge, training observation capacity, promoting imagination, sharp reasoning ability, but also nurture the ability to think outside the box along with critical thinking. Below is the collection of 40 fun riddles to help create an exciting atmosphere as well as a great approach to put your student’s brains into work before any lesson!

Discover Related Guides: 120+ High and Middle School Debate Topics for Students

40 Riddles for a fun brain warm-up session

1. What can carry a large piece of wood but not a small pebble? - River
2. How to not hit your finger when you hit a nail with a hammer? - Hold the hammer with both hands
3. If you see a bird sitting on a tree branch, how do you remove the branch without disturbing the bird? - Wait for the bird to fly away
4. What is always in front of you, that you never see? - Future
5. What always goes to but never arrives? - Tomorrow
6. There are three apples on the table and you take away two. How many apples do you have left? - 2 fruits (Because you already took away 2 fruits)
7. Parents have six sons, each son has a sister. How many people are there in that family? - 9 people (including 6 sons, 1 daughter, and parents)
8. A murderer sentenced to death. He had to choose one of three rooms: the first room was full of fire, the second was full of assassins with guns, and the third was full of lions that had been starving for three years. Which room is safest for him? - The third room because the tigers died after 3 years of not eating
9. Can you name three consecutive days without the names Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday? - Yesterday Today Tomorrow
10. A glass full of water, how to get water from the bottom of the glass without pouring water out? - Use a straw
11. What do buyers know, sellers know, users never know? - Coffin
12. Why do people close one eye when shooting a gun? - If you close both eyes, you will not see the way to shoot
13. What lives if it is fed and dies if you give it water? - Fire
14. What has a neck but no mouth? - Shirt
15. There is a basket of apples, in the basket, there are three. How to divide 3 people, each person has one fruit and still have one fruit in the basket? - Give the first 2 people 1 fruit each. With 1 left in the basket, give the whole basket of apples to the other person
16. What is lying when walking, standing, and lying, but lying down and standing? - Foot
17. What's black when you buy it, red when you use it, and gray when you throw it away? - Coal
18. Each year has 7 months and 31 days. How many months have 28 days? - twelfth
19. I travel the world and I stay in the same place, who am I? - The stamp
20. Why are 30 men and 2 women fighting? - Chess
21. How did the boy kick the ball 3 meters and then the ball returned to the boy? - The boy kicked the ball towards the top of his head
22. Where does today come before yesterday? - Print a dictionary
23. There is a bridge with a tonnage of 10 tons, which means that if it exceeds the tonnage of more than 10 tons, the bridge will collapse. There is a cargo truck, the total tonnage of the truck is 8 tons + 4 tons = 12 tons. So, how can the driver cross this bridge (Do not remove the goods from the car)? - The driver goes, and the car stays
24. What is the sentence that people who are happy when they see it will become sad and vice versa, those who are sad when they see it will become happier. - This too shall pass
25. What holds the most water without getting wet? - Map
26. What runs around the whole yard without moving? - A fence
27. What has six faces but does not wear makeup, has twenty-one eyes but cannot see? - A dice
28. I am a seed with three letters in my name, take away the last two and I still sound the same. What am I? - Eve
29. What did Adam say before Christmas? - Christmas
30. I am a protector ; I sit on a bridge ; One person can see right through me ; While other wonders what I hide ; What am I? - Sunglasses
31. I do not have wings, but I can fly. I do not have eyes, but I can cry. I do not have a mouth, but I can scream. - A cloud
32. The more you take away from me, the bigger I will get. What am I? - A hole
33. What thing has hands but it can’t clap? - A clock
34. What falls when it’s cold but never gets hurt? - Snow
35. What has many keys but can’t open doors? - The piano
36. What can’t be used until it’s broken? - An egg
37. What are two things people never eat before breakfast? - Lunch and dinner
38. I am full of holes but I can hold water. What am I? - A sponge
39. What gets wet when they are drying? - A towel
40. I have no life, but I can die. What am I? - A battery

Explore More Teaching Tips: 22+ SMART Teacher Goals Examples in 2025