65+ Best Number Riddles for Kids & Families (With Answers)

Number riddles are one of my favorite ways to sneak a little thinking practice into everyday moments. They feel like a game, but they help kids slow down, reason things through, and build confidence with numbers without worksheets or pressure.

We use number riddles during car rides, at the dinner table, or as quick brain breaks when kids need something engaging but screen-free. They work for a wide range of ages, especially when you mix easy riddles with a few trickier ones.

Below you’ll find our best number riddles with answers, organized by difficulty so you can quickly find the right ones for your kids. And if riddles are a hit in your house, see all riddles for kids and families in our main riddle hub.

Top 10 Best Number Riddles

1. Riddle: Which weighs more, a ton of bricks or a ton of feathers?
   Answer: Neither
2. Riddle: I am an odd number. Take away one letter and I become even. What number am I?
   Answer: Seven
3. Riddle: What number can you spell the same forwards and backwards?
   Answer: Any palindrome number (like 11)
4. Riddle: If two’s company and three’s a crowd, what are four and five?
   Answer: Nine
5. Riddle: How many times can you subtract 5 from 25?
   Answer: Once
6. Riddle: How many months have 28 days?
   Answer: All of them
7. Riddle: What number can you subtract half from to get zero?
   Answer: 8
8. Riddle: What number do you get when you multiply all the numbers on a phone keypad?
   Answer: Zero
9. Riddle: What goes up but never comes down?
   Answer: Your age
10. Riddle: What number do you get when you divide 30 by half and add 10?
    Answer: 70

Easy Number Riddles for Kids

11. Riddle: If there are three apples and you take away two, how many do you have?
    Answer: Two
12. Riddle: How many sides does a circle have?
    Answer: Two — the inside and the outside
13. Riddle: When things go wrong, what can you always count on?
    Answer: Your fingers
14. Riddle: Eggs cost $0.12 a dozen. How many eggs can you buy for a dollar?
    Answer: 100
15. Riddle: You have a basket with 20 apples. You have 20 hungry children. Every child should get an apple but one apple should remain in the basket. How do you do that?
    Answer: You give 19 children one apple each and you give the last one the basket containing the last apple.
16. Riddle: How do you divide 10 apples among 11 people?
    Answer: Make applesauce
17. Riddle: A little girl goes to the store and buys one dozen eggs. As she is going home, all but three eggs break. How many eggs are left unbroken?
    Answer: Three
18. Riddle: How many feet are there if there are four sheep, two dogs, and one herdsman?
    Answer: Two
19. Riddle: A boy blows 18 bubbles, Then pops 6, eats 7, And then he pops 5 and blows 1. How many are left?
    Answer: 1

Funny Number Riddles

20. Riddle: What did the zero say to the eight?
    Answer: “Nice belt!”
21. Riddle: What did one math book say to the other math book?
    Answer: “Do you want to hear my problems?”
22. Riddle: What did the triangle say to the circle?
    Answer: “You’re pointless.”
23. Riddle: How did the soccer fan know the score would be 0–0 before the game?
    Answer: Because it always starts 0–0
24. Riddle: Why are 1999 ten-pound notes worth more than 1993 ten-pound notes?
    Answer: Because there are more of them

Pattern & Number Logic Riddles

25. Riddle: Using only addition, how can you add eight 8s to make 1,000?
    Answer: 888 + 88 + 8 + 8 + 8 = 1,000
26. Riddle: What two whole, positive numbers that have a one-digit answer when multiplied and a two-digit answer when added?
    Answer: 1 and 9
27. Riddle: What two whole, postive numbers have the same answer when multiplied together as when added together?
    Answer: 2 and 2
28. Riddle: What 3 numbers give the same result when multiplied and added together?
    Answer: 1, 2, and 3 (1 + 2 + 3 = 6 and 1 x 2 x 3 = 6).
29. Riddle: What two-digit number equals two times the result of multiplying its digits?
    Answer: 36
30. Riddle: What two-digit numbers are each equal to their right-most digit squared?
    Answer: 25 = 5² and 36 = 6²
31. Riddle: What do 11 and 88 have in common?
    Answer: They look the same upside-down and backward
32. Riddle: What can you put between a 7 and an 8 so that the result is greater than a seven, but less than an eight?
    Answer: A decimal. 7.8 is greater than 7, but less than 8.

Tricky Number Riddles for Teens

33. Riddle: I am a three-digit number. My second digit is 4 times bigger than the third digit. My first digit is 3 less than my second digit. Who am I?
    Answer: 141
34. Riddle: I am a three-digit number. My tens digit is six more than my ones digit. My hundreds digit is eight less than my tens digit. What number am I?
    Answer: 193
35. Riddle: I add five to nine and get two. How?
    Answer: Time — 9 a.m. + 5 hours = 2 p.m.
36. Riddle: If eleven plus two equals one, what does nine plus five equal?
    Answer: 11 o’clock plus 2 hours = 1 o’clock , 9 o’clock plus 5 hours = 2 o’clock
37. Riddle: If seven people each shake hands once, how many handshakes occur?
    Answer: 21
38. Riddle: Two fathers and two sons are in a car, yet there are only three people in the car. How?
    Answer: Grandfather, father, son
39. Riddle: Mrs. Green has 5 daughters. Each of these daughters has a brother. How many children does Mrs. Green have?
    Answer: She has 6 children. Each daughter has the same brother. There are 5 daughters and 1 son.
40. Riddle: Marla has four daughters, and each of her daughters has a brother. How many children does Marla have?
    Answer: Five — each daughter has the same brother.
41. Riddle: The day before yesterday I was 21, and next year I will be 24. When is my birthday?
    Answer: December 31; today is January 1.
42. Riddle: A man has nine children. Half are boys. How is this possible?
    Answer: They are all boys
43. Riddle: What number becomes smaller when turned upside down?
    Answer: Nine
44. Riddle: A man describes his daughters, saying, “They are all blonde, but two; all brunette but two; and all redheaded but two.” How many daughters does he have?
    Answer: Three – a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead

Word & Logic Number Riddles

45. Riddle: A word I know, six letters it contains, remove one letter and 12 remains, what is it?
    Answer: Dozens
46. Riddle: Among those numbers whose literal representation in capital letters consist only of straight line segments (for example, FIVE), only one number has a value equal to the number of segments used to write it. What is the number?
    Answer: 29
47. Riddle: What is the highest number that can be written with three digits?
    Answer: (9⁹)⁹ = 9³⁸⁷⁴²⁰⁴⁸⁹, which is a number with more than 369 million digits.
48. Riddle: Double my number, I’m less than a score, Half of my number is less than four. Add one to my double when bakers are near, Days of the week are still greater, I fear.
    Answer: Six
49. Riddle: You’re sitting down for breakfast and realize you have 4 bagels left. You know you’ll run out in four days so you cut them in half. How many bagels do you have now?
    Answer: 4 Bagels
50. Riddle: In an odd little town, was an odd little stream with odd little fish in an odd little team. A stranger approached a local fisherman and asked him how much his odd little fish weighed. The odd little man replied, “All the fish in this stream weigh exactly 1/2 of a pound plus 1/2 of a fish.” Isn’t that odd? How many pounds does an odd little fish weigh?
    Answer: One

Real-World Math Riddles

51. Riddle: There is a clothing store in Bartlesville. The owner has devised his own method of pricing items. A vest costs $20, socks cost $25, a tie costs $15 and a blouse costs $30. Using the method, how much would a pair of underwear cost?
    Answer: $45. The pricing method consists of charging $5 for each letter required to spell the item.
52. Riddle: A new clothing store has a unique method of pricing items. A vest costs $20, a tie costs $15, a blouse costs $30, and underwear costs $45. How much would pants cost?
    Answer: $25. The pricing method charges $5 for each letter needed to spell the item.
53. Riddle: Tulia has $29.00 dollars. She bought 4 coloring books that cost $3.00 each, and 4 boxes of crayons that cost $2.00 each. She spent the rest of her money on markers. How much money did she spend on markers?
    Answer: $9
54. Riddle: Leonard works at the aquarium. When he tries to put each turtle in its own tank, he has one turtle too many. But if he puts two turtles per tank, he has one tank too many. How many turtles and how many tanks does Leonard have?
    Answer: 4 turtles and 3 tanks
55. Riddle: A 300 ft. train that is traveling 300 ft. per minute must travel through a 300 ft. long tunnel. How long will it take the train to travel through the tunnel?
    Answer: 2 minutes
56. Riddle: A horse was tied to a rope 5 meters long and the horse’s food was 15 meters away from the horse. How did the horse reach the food?
    Answer: The rope wasn’t tied to anything so he could reach the food.
57. Riddle: You are a bus driver at a station. 10 get on the bus and no one gets off. You drive 10 miles to another station where 3 people get on and 1 gets off. You drive another 10 miles only to get 25 people on and 5 people go off. Next you drive 3 miles while 12 people exit the bus. You drive back to the place knowing that there are a couple more stops along the way until the ride is done. At the 2nd to last station 5 people get on and 2 get off. And at the last station (5.5 miles) 25 people get on for no reason and 1 gets off. What is the bus driver’s eye color?
    Answer: Your eye color

Advanced Thinking Riddles

58. Riddle: You split $200 million evenly among five people. Each gets 25%. How much do you get?
    Answer: 100%
59. Riddle: There are 100 pairs of dogs in a zoo. Two pairs of babies are born for every dog. Unfortunately, 23 of the dogs have not survived. How many dogs would be left in total?
    Answer: 977
60. Riddle: A group of students is 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 are the students facing?
    Answer:  East. They will turn 90 degrees in a right turn, and they turn 180 degrees in an about-turn, and finally, they turn 90 degrees in a left turn. Therefore, the students are now facing east.
61. Riddle: A man is twice as old as his little sister. He is also half as old as their dad. Over a period of 50 years, the age of the sister will become half of their dad’s age. What is the age of the man now?
    Answer: 50
62. Riddle: Double it and multiply it by 4. Then divide it by 8 and you’ll have it once more. What number is it?
    Answer: Any number
63. Riddle: One year has 365 days. How many seconds are in a year?
    Answer: 12 (the second day of each month)
64. Riddle: A grandmother, two mothers, and two daughters went to a baseball game together and bought one ticket each. How many tickets did they buy in total?
    Answer: 3 tickets (The grandmother is also a mother and the mother is also a daughter.)
65. Riddle: At the time of shipping, Jacob 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 (410 = 40 boxes) 7 large boxes (78 = 56 boxes) So, Jacob shipped 96 boxes and 11 total cartons )
66. Riddle: John was asked to paint the apartment number on plates of 100 apartments which means he will have to paint numbers 1 through 100. Can you figure out the number of times he will have to paint the number 8?
    Answer: 20 times. (8, 18, 28, 38, 48, 58, 68, 78, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 98)

Related Riddle Collections You’ll Love

• Riddles for Kids
• Math Riddles for Kids
• Tricky Riddles for Teens
• Emoji Riddles for Kids
• See all riddles for kids and families in our main riddle hub.

Number riddles are a simple way to build confidence with math concepts while keeping things light and fun. Bookmark this page and pull it out whenever kids need a quick challenge or an easy win.

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