Pick the band, not the list
A quiz for a seven-year-old and a quiz for a twelve-year-old have almost nothing in common, and the lists that promise "questions for kids" without saying which kids are the reason most family quizzes go quiet after five minutes. The thirty questions here are sorted into three bands: six to eight, nine to eleven, and twelve and up. Start in the band of the youngest player and move up one band for the last round, so the older children get something to chew on without the younger ones being out of it from the start.
Every answer comes with a sentence of context, because "the Nile" is a fact and "the Nile, which flows north, which surprises almost everyone" is something a child repeats at school the next day. That second part is what makes a quiz worth doing with children rather than to them.
Ages six to eight
1. How many days are there in a week? Seven. Their names in English come from the sun, the moon and old gods — Thursday is Thor's day.
2. What colour do you get when you mix blue and yellow? Green. Mix all three primary colours of paint and you get a muddy brown.
3. What is the largest animal that lives on land? The African elephant. A big male weighs about six tonnes — as much as four cars.
4. How many planets are there in our solar system? Eight. Pluto was counted as the ninth until 2006, when it was reclassified as a dwarf planet.
5. What do bees make from the nectar they collect? Honey. A single bee makes about one twelfth of a teaspoon in its whole life.
6. Which is the fastest animal on land? The cheetah, which can run at over a hundred kilometres an hour — but only for about twenty seconds.
7. What is water called when it freezes? Ice. It floats on water because it is lighter than water, which is unusual — most things get heavier when they freeze.
8. How many sides does a triangle have? Three. A square has four, a pentagon five, and a hexagon — the shape of honeycomb — six.
9. What is a baby cat called? A kitten. A baby dog is a puppy, a baby sheep is a lamb, and a baby kangaroo is a joey.
10. Which planet do we live on? Earth — the third planet from the Sun, and the only one known to have life.
Ages nine to eleven
11. What is the capital of France? Paris. It has been the capital for more than a thousand years, and about two million people live in the city itself.
12. Which is the longest river in Africa? The Nile, at about 6,650 kilometres. It flows north, which surprises almost everyone.
13. Which gas do plants take in from the air to make their food? Carbon dioxide. They give out oxygen in return, which is the air we breathe.
14. How many continents are there? Seven: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. Some countries teach six, counting the Americas as one.
15. What is the largest ocean in the world? The Pacific. It covers about a third of the planet — more than all the land put together.
16. Which planet is known as the Red Planet? Mars. The colour comes from rust — iron in the soil reacting with what little oxygen there is.
17. How many bones does an adult human have? 206. A baby is born with around 300, and many of them fuse together while growing up.
18. What is the hardest natural material? Diamond. It is made of carbon — the same element as the graphite in a pencil, arranged differently.
19. Which musical instrument has 88 keys? The piano: 52 white and 36 black. The name is short for "pianoforte", meaning "soft-loud", because it could do both.
20. What is the largest animal that has ever lived? The blue whale — bigger than any dinosaur. Its heart weighs about as much as two grown men.
Ages twelve and up
21. What is the chemical symbol for gold? Au, from the Latin "aurum". Silver is Ag, from "argentum" — which is also where Argentina gets its name.
22. Which is the smallest country in the world? Vatican City, at about 0.44 square kilometres — you can walk across it in twenty minutes.
23. Who painted the Mona Lisa? Leonardo da Vinci, in the early 1500s. It hangs in the Louvre in Paris, behind bulletproof glass, and is smaller than most people expect.
24. In which year did people first land on the Moon? 1969. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent about two and a half hours walking on it; twelve people have walked there in total, and nobody since 1972.
25. At what temperature does water boil at sea level? 100 degrees Celsius. On top of Mount Everest, where the air is thinner, it boils at about 70 degrees.
26. What is the tallest mountain on Earth above sea level? Mount Everest, at 8,849 metres. Measured from its base on the sea floor, Mauna Kea in Hawaii is taller.
27. How many players does a football team have on the pitch? Eleven, including the goalkeeper. In a match between two full teams, that is twenty-two players and one ball.
28. What is the largest desert in the world? Antarctica. A desert is defined by how little rain falls, not by heat — and the Sahara is only the largest hot desert.
29. Which language has the most native speakers in the world? Mandarin Chinese, with around 900 million. English has more speakers in total, but most of them learned it as a second language.
30. Roughly how fast does light travel? About 300,000 kilometres per second. Light from the Sun takes about eight minutes to reach us, so we always see the Sun as it was eight minutes ago.
Running a round with children
Give more time than you would give adults: thirty seconds a question, not twenty, and read every question twice. A child who is still working out what was asked when the timer ends does not learn anything except that quizzes are stressful.
Mix ages by handicapping the rounds, not the children. Everyone answers the same questions; the older ones just have to get the harder band right to score the same. Nobody enjoys being told their questions are easier, and nobody notices when the rounds simply get harder as they go.
Let them ask the questions, too. A child who has written five questions for the family has learned more from the quiz than one who has answered fifty, and the questions children write are reliably the ones that catch the adults out.
And end while they still want more. Three rounds of ten is plenty; a fourth round is where the youngest player drifts off to do something else, and the quiz is remembered as the thing that went on too long.
Try it now
Make a room in 30 seconds and send the code to your friends.