Matching Tracksuits

Today, we continued working on our critical thinking/problem solving unit with a gallery walk of riddles. Spread around the room were nine different riddles of varying difficulty:

1. Two fathers and two sons are in a car, yet there are only three people in the car. How?
2. Forward I am heavy, but backward I am not. What am I?
3. What starts with T, ends with T, and has T in it?
4. What is it that no one wants to have, but no one wants to lose either?
5. Mary has four daughters, and each of her daughters has a brother. How many children does Mary have?
6. Two in a corner, one in a room, zero in a house, but one in a shelter. What is it?
7. I am an odd number. Take away a letter and I become even. What number am I?
8. A word I know, six letters it contains, remove one letter and 12 remains. What is it?
9. Poor people have it. Rich people need it. If you eat it you die. What is it?

Students moved in their table groups from riddle to riddle and discussed them as groups. Some of the riddles were quite easy for the groups (numbers 1 and 3); some were a bit trickier (numbers 2 and 5); one was all but impossible (number 8), which stumped all but one student, a sixth-grade girl.

We used three riddle classifications to identify them as we went through the answers:

• word riddles, which contain hints within the words itself;
• faux-math riddles, which are actually just word riddles;
• pure riddles, which have no clues hidden in the text.

We discussed how the riddles work and how various riddles use language to trick our brains to ineffective ways of thinking based on how we usually use language.