Using visual brain teasers in the classroom encourages critical thinking in your students, plus, kids love them! We have found our favourite simple, yet effective visual brain teasers that will encourage logical thinking and develop problem solving skills. Teachers may get some enjoyment out of trying to work out some of these brain teasers too!
Put one up towards the end of class as a fast finisher activity. The discussions you have around how the students worked out the brain teasers are crucial.
1. What comes next?
A brain teaser for pattern recognition. Can your students work out which patterned block goes in the fourth spot?
2. How many blocks are in this tower?
A brain teaser to test students’ spatial visualisation and their ability to study 3D features. Can your students work out how many blocks are in this 3D tower?
3. Can you work out the net?
This brain teaser is great to test spatial visualisation. Students have to mentally put together the 3D cube to work out the correct net.
4. How many triangles?
In this visual brain teaser, students need to work out how many triangles there are in the image.
5. How many squares?
Similar to the visual brain teaser above, however, students need to work out how many squares they can see.
6. Move one glass only
In this visual brain teaser students can see three glasses on the left that are full, and three on the right that are empty. They can only move one glass to make a row of alternately full and empty glasses. Which one do they move?
7. Make 10
This is a great problem solving brain teaser. Students need to remove six matches to make 10. Which ones do they move?
8. Top view
In this non-verbal brain teaser, students must work out which is the top view. You may like to time them to see who can work out this one the quickest…
9. What parking spot?
This visual brain teaser was on a Hong Kong first grade student admissions test. A great brain teaser to encourage children to think laterally. Can you work it out? Apparently children around the age of 6 are much more likely to solve this problem over older students and even adults.
10. What is our weight?
A great mathematical problem solving activity for students to work out the weight of all three animals in the fourth image.
Finished?
Finished these ten visual brain teasers with your class? No worries – check out some of our brain teaser resources:
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Answers
- Opposite squares are exchanged in this problem, so the answer is A.
- There are 9 blocks.
- B and C can be immediately rejected visually. D will create the mirror image of the given cube. So the correct answer is A.
- There are 44 triangles.
- There are 40 squares.
- Pour the second glass from the left into the empty class second from the right.
- You can make the word ‘ten’ by removing the bottom matchstick and two side matchsticks from the first letter. The far right matchstick on the second letter and the top and bottom matchstick on the third letter.
- The answer is C.
- Turn the picture upside down. You will then see the following number sequence: 86 ? 88, 89, 90, 91. So the answer is 87.
- Maths calculations will give the weight of the horse as 17 kg. Therefore the weight of the sheep and frog are 10 kg, so the answer is 27 kg.
Your answer is correct but the explanation may not be helpful as they already know the frog + sheep = 10. Here's the working incase someone is trying to find it . 1. frog + sheep = 10 2. frog + horse = 20 3. sheep + horse = 24 Therefore: f = 10 - s h = 24 - s f + h = 20 substitute in the 2 rearranged values for frog and horse 10 - s + 24 - s = 20 -2s = 20 -24-10 -s = -14 /2 s = 7 If s = 7 then h= 24-7 h = 17 f = 10 - s f = 10 - 7 f = 3 Frog = 3Kg (a very big frog) Sheep = 7Kg (a very very small sheep) Horse = 17 Kg (a very small miniature horse!) Total = 27Kg
#3's answer is incorrect. My students and I cut out the nets and assembled them because we couldn't believe your answer. A is definitely correct!
Hi there, thanks so much for your comment. I'll have to double check the website I got this information from and get back to you.
When I gave puzzle #7 to my 9yo daughter, she solved it by removing the central match from the first square, all but the right-most match in the centre square, and the diagonal in the last square. This left 010- I was pretty impressed!
Thanks for your comment Melinda. What great problem solving skills your daughter has. Well done! Kind regards, Holly