Math Puzzles

30 Amazing Math Puzzles for Kids

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21 January 2021

Reading Time: 10 minutes

Math Puzzles and Math Riddles can be a great source of learning and provide a better understanding to the kids.

It helps a kid in a number of ways:

  • Mathematical puzzles help kids to think differently

  • It helps students to visualize the problem set and then arrive at a solution

  • It helps students to follow a step by step approach

  • It will make the mind of a kid sharper which helps them to solve the maths problems more efficiently

  • It ensures a daily practice and improves the accuracy of a child

  • It improves the concentration and the determination of a child to solve a maths riddle

  • Lastly, it is a great way to stand out from your peers and friends

child reading math

30 Amazing Math Puzzles for Kids-PDF

Here is a PDF that contains 30 amazing math puzzles for kids that will make them  in solving questions that are complicated in the next level and help your children to think better and solve smart. Here is a downloadable PDF to explore more.

📥 How to solve Questions on Mirror and Water Images-PDF

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Math Puzzles with Answers for Kids

To help our students with developing their skill set, we have brought a set of 30 math puzzles for kids. Not only this, but we have also stated elaborated answers for the question set which will help our students at each and every step which they take.

Therefore, some of the maths puzzles with answers are as follows:

  1. Suppose, you have 10 apples and 10 friends. You give each of your friends one apple. Now all your friends have one apple each. But there is still an apple left in the basket. How is this possible?

Answer: The question is actually very simple but makes us think in complicated ways. After giving 9 apples to 9 friends, give the 10th friend the basket along with the 10th apple in it. This is all that it takes to think differently.

Apples in a basket

  1. Find a 10-digit number where the first digit is how many zeros are in the number, the second digit is how many 1s are in the number, etc. until the tenth digit which is how many 9s are in the number.

Answer: 6210001000

  1. What is the following number? 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36, ______________

Answer: We have an arithmetic series over here in which every successive number is greater by 3. So the sequence will be: 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36, 39, 42, 45, 48, and so on.

  1. Hari had 6 siblings who were all born 2 years apart. The youngest is Richa who is only 7 years old while Hari is the oldest. What is Hari’s age?

Answer: Richa, the youngest sibling is 7 years old. Each sibling was born 2 years apart, and there are a total of seven children (Hari and his 6 siblings). Therefore, Hari’s age is: 7 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 19.

  1. Ravi lives in a village that is next to a forest. One day he met with a genie. The genie granted Ravi one wish. Ravi wished for 100 grams of gold. The genie agreed and offered Ravi 100 grams of gold. Shocked and feeling upset that he asked for so little, Ravi requested the genie for another wish. The genie agreed on one condition that he would come back the next month on any date and Ravi would need to present him with gold rings. However, the gold rings have to be of the same weight as on the date on which the genie arrived. This means that if the genie came on the 20th, he would need 20 grams of gold. What did Ravi do next?

Answer: This is a challenging maths riddle because the date is unknown. If Ravi decided to make a different gold ring for each day, it will be a problem because he has only 100 grams of gold. So, if he made a gold ring of 31 grams, 30 grams, 29 grams, and 27 grams, he would run out of gold. So what should he do? The solution is to make 5 rings of weight 1 gram, 2 grams, 4 grams, 8 grams, and 16 grams. These numbers can be used to reach any combination up till the number 31. For example: 24th day: 16+8, 13th day: 8+4+1, 31st day: 16+8+4+2+1 etc.

  1. If Radha is the 50th fastest and slowest runner in her school, how many students are there in her school?

Answer: 99 students.

50th Fastest when you count in sequence from 1, Radha comes on 50.

50th Slowest when you count in sequence from 99, Radha is again on 50.

  1. Six Wolves can catch six lambs in six minutes. So how many wolves will catch 60 lambs in sixty minutes? 

Answer: 1 wolf can catch 1 lamb in six minutes. In 60 minutes, each wolf can catch 10 lambs. So, 6 wolves can catch 60 lambs in 60 minutes. 

Wolf and the lambs

  1. What weighs more – A kilo of apples or a kilo of iron?

Answer: They weigh the same. Each weighs exactly a kilo.

  1. Last weekend, Jack went to play in the park near his house. He rode the new bicycle gifted by his grandma. After reaching the park, Jack saw that there were 14 tricycles and bicycles. If there were 38 wheels in total, how many tricycles were there in the park?

Answer: There were 10 tricycles which will make up 10*3 = 30 wheels and 4 bicycles which will make up 4*2 = 8 wheels. In total, there were 30+8 = 38 wheels.

  1. If there are five monkeys and each one takes 5 minutes to eat 5 bananas. How many minutes would 4 monkeys take to eat 4 bananas? 

Answer: Each monkey eats 5 bananas in 5 minutes, so 1 banana in 1 minute. So, if there are 4 monkeys and 4 bananas, they will take 1 minute only.

  1. The age of a father and a son add up to 66. The age of the dad is the age of the son reversed. How old could they be?

Answer: There are three different answers for this: the father and son could be 51 and 15 years or 42 and 24 years old or 60 and 06 years old. Each of these combinations would add up to give 66 as a total. 

  1. A scientist engineered a new plant that could double its size every day. He made it grow in a circular pond with a circumference of 600 meters. If he planted it in the southern part of the pond, and the plant-covered half the pond in 28 days, how many days would it take to cover the full pond?

Answer: 29 days. 

As mentioned in the beginning, the plant doubles in size every day. So if it already covered half of the pond in 28 days, then it will just get doubled on the 29th day and cover up the whole pond. 

  1. There are 2 buckets, a 5 liter, and a 3-liter bucket. Fill the 5-liter bucket with 4 liters of water using just these two buckets to measure.

Answer: Fill the 3-liter bucket fully. Pour it into the 5-liter bucket. Again fill the 3-liter bucket. Pour the remaining 2 liters into the 5-liter bucket. Pour the 5-liter bucket completely and fill it with the 1 liter remaining in the 3-liter bucket. Again fill the 3-liter bucket and pour it into the 5-liter bucket.

a bucket full of water

  1. Two fathers and two sons go fishing. Each of them catches one fish. So why do they bring home only three fish?

Answer: The fishing group comprises a grandfather, his son, and his son’s son. So, there are just three people.

  1. At the time of shipping, Tom can place 10 small boxes or 8 large boxes into a carton. A total of 96 boxes were sent in one shipment. The number of small boxes was less than large boxes. What is the total number of cartons he shipped?

Answer: 11 cartons

4 small boxes (4*10 = 40 boxes)

7 large boxes (7*8 = 56 boxes)

So 96 boxes and 11 total cartons

  1. William has a toaster with 2 slots. So he can toast one side each of 2 loaves of bread simultaneously which takes 1 minute. He wanted to make 3 pieces of toast for his breakfast. What is the minimum time required to do so?

Answer: 3 minutes! First of all, he can put two pieces of bread in the toaster. After 1 minute, one side of each of the 2 loaves of bread gets toasted. He can then flip one bread and take the other one out and replace it with the 3rd bread. After the second minute, 1 bread is completely toasted and 2 loaves of bread are half toasted. After 3 minutes, all 3 pieces of bread get toasted.

  1. You are given a telephone and asked to multiply all the numbers on the device’s number pad. What will be the answer?

Answer: Zero (The number pad contains number 0. When you multiply any number by zero, the answer will be zero)

telephone

  1. Tom and Peter live in different parts of the city but study in the same high school. Tom left for school 10 minutes before Peter started and they happened to meet at a park. At the time of their meeting, who was closer to the school?

Answer: They are both at the same distance from school as they met in the same place. 

  1. Amir has 2 buckets with him. The first bucket had only red marbles and the other one had only brown marbles. The 2 of these buckets have an equal number of marbles. What type of arrangement can he make to increase the possibility of grabbing a red marble from each of the buckets?

Answer: Keep only a single red marble in one bucket and the remaining red and brown marbles in the other bucket. This increases his chances of grabbing a red marble from each of the buckets which is not possible with any other arrangement.

  1. A group of students was standing in the blazing sun facing due west on a march past event. The leader shouted at them: Right turn! About turn! Left turn! At the end of these commands, in which direction is the students facing now?

Answer: They will turn 90 degrees in a right turn and face north. Then, they turn 180 degrees in an about-turn to face south, and finally, they turn 90 degrees in a left turn. Therefore, the students are now facing east.

  1. Tom weighs half as much as Peter and Jerry weigh 3 times the weight of Tom. Their total weight is 720 pounds. Can you figure out the individual weights of each man?

Answer: Let Peter’s weight be 2x. Then Tom’s weight is x and Jerry’s weights 3x. 

x + 2x + 3x = 720

6x = 720

x = 120 pounds

So, Tom weighs 120 pounds, Peter weighs 240 pounds and Jerry weighs 360 pounds.

  1. There is an empty basket that is one foot in diameter. Can you tell me the total number of eggs that you can put in this empty basket?

Answer: Only One Egg! Once you put an egg into the basket, it doesn’t remain empty anymore.

Basket full of eggs

  1. There is a golf club that is formed for men only. The club comprises a total of 600. 5% of the total men in the club have one tattoo. By taking into account the other 95% members, half of them have two tattoos and the remaining men have no tattoos. What is the total number of tattoos that you can see in the club?

Answer: According to the information, 5% or 30 of them are having one tattoo. Among the other 95% or 570 men, half of them have two tattoos and the rest half have none. This is equivalent to all of them having a tattoo. So the total number of tattoos is 600.

  1. X is a three-digit number. The tens digit is 5 more than the ones digit. The hundreds digit is 8 less than the tens digit. What is X?

Answer: Number 194. 

  1. When you add eight 8’s, the result you get will be number 1,000. How is it possible? You are permitted to use only addition to solve the problem.

Answer: 888 + 88 + 8 + 8 + 8 = 1,000

  1. I am an odd number; take away an alphabet and I become even. What number am I?

Answer: Seven (SEVEN-S=EVEN)

  1. A man works on the 10th floor and always takes the elevator down to ground level at the end of the day. Yet every morning, he only takes the elevator to the 7th floor and then walks up the stairs to the 10th floor, even when in a hurry. But he will go all the way to the 10th floor when others are in the elevator with him or on a rainy day. Why?

Answer: He is too short to reach the "10" button. But when others are with him, he can ask them to push the button for the 10th floor. And on a rainy day, he has an umbrella, so he can push the button using that.

  1. Tom asked his Granny how old she was. Rather than giving him a straight answer, she replied: "I have 6 children, and there are 4 years between each one and the next. I had my first child (your Uncle Peter) when I was 19. Now the youngest one (Your Auntie Jane) is 19 herself. That's all I'm telling you!" How old is Tom's Granny?

Answer: Tom's Granny is 58 years old. Let's see why: First child born: Granny is 19, Second child born: Granny is 23 (19 + 4), Third child born: Granny is 27 (23 + 4), Fourth child born: Granny is 31 (27 + 4), Fifth child born: Granny is 35 (31 + 4), Sixth child born: Granny is 39 (35 + 4), Sixth child is 19: Granny is 58 (39 + 19)

grandmother and grandchild clipart

  1. When asked about his birthday, a man said: "The day before yesterday I was only 25 and next year I will turn 28." This is true only one day in a year - when was he born?

Answer: He was born on December 31st and spoke about it on January 1st. `The day before yesterday I was only 25...'

Dec 30: 25

Dec 31: 26

Jan 1 (this year): 26

'...next year I will turn 28'

Dec 31 (this year): 27

Dec 31 (next year): 28

  1. Find a number with its letters in alphabetical order. Example: "five" has "fiv" in alphabetical order, but not "e".

Answer: Forty. It is the only number we know of in English with its letters in alphabetical order. And that is the correct spelling.

So, these were some basic maths puzzles for kids along with their answers for our readers. We have tried to provide an explanatory answer for the same. This will help our readers to understand these puzzles in a better and simplified way. 


Conclusion

Puzzle play was found to be a significant predictor of spatial skill after controlling for differences in parents’ income, education, and the overall amount of parent language input. Activities such as early puzzle play may lay the groundwork for the development of this ability. The best way to make it happen is through Mathematics.

 Cuemath has always believed in the development of mental skills and abilities amongst its students. We understand that maths could be boring at times, especially when you are stuck somewhere in the middle of a process. But, there are ways to make it fun. We can visualize or draw imaginary pictures related to what is stated in the maths problem. 

Happy Studying!!

Best of Luck!!


About Cuemath

Cuemath, a student-friendly mathematics and coding platform, conducts regular Online Classes for academics and skill-development, and their Mental Math App, on both iOS and Android, is a one-stop solution for kids to develop multiple skills. Understand the Cuemath Fee structure and sign up for a free trial.


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on Math Puzzles

Are Puzzles good for your brain?

Doing a puzzle reinforces connections between brain cells, improves mental speed and is an especially effective way to improve short-term memory. Jigsaw puzzles improve your visual-spatial reasoning. Jigsaw puzzles are a great meditation tool and stress reliever.

Why is math so important in everyday life?

Mathematics makes our life orderly and prevents chaos. Certain qualities that are nurtured by mathematics are power of reasoning, creativity, abstract or spatial thinking, critical thinking, problem-solving ability and even effective communication skills.


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