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Tricky riddles · free to print

30 Riddles for 9 Year Olds

Nine-year-olds are wise to the obvious answer, so these are built to mislead. Several hide the trick in a word you skim past — the sort of riddle where the answer feels unfair for a second, then obvious. That flip is the fun.

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From Emma: When they insist a riddle is impossible, read it again slowly and stress the word doing the work. Nine-year-olds will usually spot the trap themselves on the second pass.

  1. I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body, but I come alive with the wind. What am I?

  2. The more you take, the more you leave behind. What am I?

  3. What is the one thing you can never, ever eat for breakfast?

  4. What can you break without ever touching it?

  5. A man rode into town on Friday and stayed three days, then rode home on Friday. How?

  6. I have lakes with no water, mountains with no stone, and cities with nobody living in them. What am I?

  7. What belongs to you, but everybody else uses it far more than you do?

  8. The more of it you have, the less you see. What is it?

  9. I am always in front of you, but you will never see me. What am I?

  10. What has thirteen hearts but no lungs and no stomach?

  11. Forwards I am heavy, but backwards I am not. What am I?

  12. What can go up a chimney down, but cannot go down a chimney up?

  13. What has a head, a tail, is brown, and has no legs?

  14. How many months of the year have twenty-eight days?

  15. What gets bigger the more you take out of it?

  16. If there are three apples and you take away two, how many do you have?

  17. What can you catch but never throw, and nobody wants to be given?

  18. What kind of coat is always wet when you put it on?

  19. I am tall when I am young, and short when I am old. What am I?

  20. What has one eye but is completely blind?

  21. What word is pronounced the same even after you take away four of its five letters?

  22. A farmer has seventeen sheep and all but nine run away. How many are left?

  23. What has many rings but never a single finger?

  24. What goes through towns and over hills but never actually moves?

  25. What is so delicate that saying its name destroys it?

  26. What has four legs in the morning, two at noon and three at night?

  27. I have keys but no locks, space but no room, and you can enter but never go inside. What am I?

  28. What is full of holes but still holds a lot of water?

  29. Which is heavier: a kilogram of feathers or a kilogram of bricks?

  30. What can fly without wings and cry without eyes?

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Want these on paper?

Riddles are free to print right here. If your 9-year-old would also like 50 gentle printable pages — tracing, matching, counting, little puzzles — I’ll send them over.

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