129 Fun Facts About Kindergarten

How many legs does a spider have?

Eight legs show that a spider is not an insect: every insect has six legs, and spiders also lack the feelers that insects carry on their heads.

Which month comes first in the year?

January opens the year; it is named after Janus, the Roman god of doorways and beginnings, who was pictured with two faces looking in opposite directions.

What is a baby cat called?

A kitten cannot keep itself warm for its first few weeks, so newborn kittens huddle against their mother and each other.

What is a baby dog called?

A puppy needs a great deal of sleep, because sleep helps its fast-growing body and brain to develop.

Which shape has three sides?

A triangle has three sides and three corners, and it cannot be pushed out of shape the way a four-sided frame can, which is why bridges and roof beams are built from triangles.

Which shape has four sides that are all the same length?

A square has four equal sides and four right-angle corners, which makes it a special kind of rectangle: one whose length and width are the same.

What is frozen water called?

Ice is water frozen solid, and it is a little lighter than the liquid it came from, which is why ice cubes bob in a drink and icebergs float in the sea.

What do we call a small pool of water left on the ground after rain?

A puddle does not have to drain away to vanish: its water slowly turns into an invisible gas and drifts off into the air, which is called evaporation.

Which part of a plant grows down into the soil and takes in water?

The roots also hold the plant firmly in the ground, which is how even a tall tree manages to stay standing in the wind.

At what time of year do lots of trees drop their leaves?

Autumn is when leaves change colour and fall, and some people call the season fall for exactly that reason.

What does a caterpillar turn into?

A butterfly is what a caterpillar becomes: it hangs from a twig, sheds its skin to reveal a hard case called a chrysalis, and later climbs out with wings.

Which animal has a very long neck and eats leaves from tall trees?

A giraffe is the tallest animal on land, yet its long neck has no more bones than yours does; each one is simply far longer.

Which animal has a long trunk?

An elephant does not drink through its trunk like a straw: it sucks water part of the way up, then curls the trunk round and pours the water into its mouth.

Which farm animal gives us milk to drink?

A cow makes milk only after she has had a calf, because the milk is really food for her baby.

Which animal hops and carries its baby in a pouch?

A kangaroo's thick, muscular tail balances it in mid-hop and props it up like an extra leg when it stands still.

What do gardeners plant in the soil to grow a new sunflower?

A seed holds a tiny baby plant together with a store of food, which keeps it growing until its first leaves reach the light.

The Sun, which lights up our daytime sky, is which kind of space object?

A star is a huge ball of hot, glowing gas, and the Sun is the only one in our solar system; the stars we see at night are other suns, much farther away.

Which planet do we live on?

Earth is the only planet not named after a Greek or Roman god; its name comes from an Old English word that simply means the ground.

How many colours are in a rainbow the way we usually count them, starting with red and ending with violet?

Seven is the number Isaac Newton settled on: a rainbow really fades smoothly from red to violet, but he split it into seven colours to match the seven notes of a musical scale.

Mix red paint with the colour of a lemon and what do you get?

Red and yellow paint mix to make orange; the colour orange is named after the fruit, not the other way round.

What colour do you get when you mix red paint with blue paint?

Purple is what red and blue make; in ancient times purple dye came from thousands of crushed shellfish, so costly that it became the colour of emperors.

What colour is a ripe banana?

Yellow shows a banana is ripe: while it ripens, the starch inside turns into sugar, so a yellow banana tastes far sweeter than an unripe one.

Which ride-on toy has three wheels?

A tricycle has three wheels, so it stands up by itself and a small child can pedal along without having to balance.

How many wheels does a bicycle have?

Two wheels were all the first bicycles had: they came without pedals, so riders pushed themselves along with their feet on the ground.

How many fingers are on one hand, counting the thumb?

Five fingers on each hand make ten, and counting on them is probably why we count in tens; even 'digit', our word for a numeral, is Latin for finger.

Which number comes right after 9?

10 comes next: the single digits run out at 9, so we start a new tens column and write one ten and no ones.

Which day of the week comes right after Monday?

Tuesday means Tiw's day, named after a god of the early English, in the same way that Thursday is Thor's day.

Which meal do most people eat in the morning?

Breakfast is the morning meal; the word means breaking the fast, the long night of not eating.

What do bees make?

Honey is the bees' own food store: they pack it into the hive in the warm months and live on it through winter, when no flowers bloom.

Which bird cannot fly but dives and swims underwater to catch fish?

A penguin's wings are stiff flippers, useless in the air but so good underwater that a penguin seems to fly through the sea.

Which animal has black and white stripes?

A zebra's stripes work like a fingerprint: no two zebras share a pattern, so researchers can tell each animal apart.

Which big cat has dark stripes on its fur?

A tiger, unlike most cats, seems to enjoy water: it is a powerful swimmer and often cools off in ponds and rivers on hot days.

Which small garden animal carries a spiral shell on its back?

When a snail is scared, it pulls its whole body inside the shell.

Which insect lights up at night?

A firefly is not a fly at all but a soft-bodied beetle; it makes its light with chemicals inside its body, flashing to signal to other fireflies.

A lamb is the baby of which animal?

Most sheep grow wool that never stops growing, so it has to be sheared off at least once a year, a bit like having a haircut.

What is a doctor for animals called?

A vet gave English the verb 'to vet': checking something over carefully before approving it is named after the animal doctor's thorough examination.

Who rushes into burning buildings with hoses?

A firefighter wears a mask and air tank inside a burning building, because breathing the smoke is even deadlier than the flames.

What colour is the sky on a clear sunny day?

Blue light is scattered by the air far more than red light, so blue reaches us from every part of the sky.

What colour are most leaves?

Green comes from chlorophyll, the colouring that leaves use to soak up light and turn it into food for the plant.

What is the biggest animal that lives in the ocean?

A blue whale is the largest animal known ever to have lived, yet it feeds almost entirely on krill, tiny shrimp-like animals.

What do fish use to breathe underwater?

Gills let a fish breathe without coming up for air: as water flows over them, they take out the oxygen dissolved in it and pass it into the blood.

What is a baby frog called?

A tadpole has a tail and no legs, then it grows legs and loses the tail.

What do you wear on your head to ride a bike safely?

A helmet works by getting hurt instead of you: in a crash its foam lining crushes and soaks up the blow, so less of it reaches your head.

How many months are there in one year?

Twelve months make a year, with February the shortest; every leap year it gains an extra day so that the calendar stays in step with the seasons.

Which animal is called the King of the Beasts?

A lion is the most sociable of the cats: it lives, hunts and raises its cubs in a big family group, while most other cats live alone.

Which sound does a happy cat often make?

Purring usually means a cat is content, but cats also purr when they are hurt or frightened, which may be a way of soothing themselves.

Which wild animal is the dog's closest cousin?

The wolf is the dog's closest living relative: every dog, from chihuahua to great dane, descends from wolves that began living with people over 14,000 years ago.

What is a baby horse called?

A foal can stand soon after it is born and run with the herd within hours, because wild horses survive by fleeing from danger.

Hans Christian Andersen wrote a famous fairy tale called The Ugly what?

Duckling is the word in the title, but the bird is no duck: it is a young swan hatched among ducks and mocked for looking different until it grows up.

Which animal uses its long back legs to hop away from danger?

A rabbit that senses danger may thump the ground hard with a back foot, a warning to every other rabbit nearby.

Which bird hunts at night and flies almost silently?

An owl flies almost silently because its feathers have soft edges that hush the rush of air, so its prey gets no warning.

Which is the only mammal that can truly fly?

A bat's wings are thin skin stretched between its very long fingers, so a bat really flies by flapping its fingers.

Bees collect nectar and what else from flowers?

Bees collect pollen as well as nectar; honeybees carry the pollen home in little baskets on their back legs.

Ants live together in big groups called what?

Colonies are really giant families: the queen is the mother, and the worker ants that find food, look after the young and stand guard are all her daughters.

Ladybirds are usually red with what on their backs?

Ladybirds usually have black spots on red wing cases; the bright colours warn birds that they taste bad.

What is a young insect's change into a winged adult called?

Metamorphosis is at its most dramatic inside the pupa, where most of the young insect's body dissolves and is rebuilt as a winged adult.

Which sea creature usually has five arms and can regrow one it loses?

A starfish is not a fish at all: it is a cousin of the sea urchin, and it creeps along on rows of tiny tube feet under its arms.

Dolphins breathe air through an opening on top of their heads called what?

A blowhole sits on top of the head so a dolphin can breathe by barely breaking the surface, and a muscular flap keeps it shut tight underwater.

Which sea animal grows new teeth again and again, in rows, all through its life?

A shark keeps rows of spare teeth lined up behind the front ones; when a tooth breaks or falls out, a new one moves forward to take its place.

Which way do crabs usually run?

Crabs usually run sideways because their legs bend that way; their hard shell works like armour.

A turtle's shell is mostly made of what?

A turtle's shell is mostly bone, joined to its ribs and backbone, so the shell is part of its skeleton and a turtle can never crawl out of it.

Which reptile has no legs at all?

A snake cannot chew, so it swallows its food whole, and its stretchy jaws open wide enough to take in a meal broader than its own head.

Which animal pushes a long, sticky tongue into mounds to lick up termites?

An anteater rips a mound open with its long claws but feeds for only about a minute, then moves on, leaving the insects to rebuild so it can return another day.

A family group of lions is called what?

A pride is built around related lionesses, who stay together for life and do most of the hunting as a team, while the males guard the territory.

Which bear loves to eat bamboo?

The giant panda spends around half of every day eating, because it digests bamboo so poorly that it needs huge amounts to get enough energy.

Which desert animal has humps on its back?

A camel's hump is full of fat, not water; when food runs short in the desert, the camel lives off that fat and the hump shrinks and flops over.

A baby kangaroo is called what?

A joey is born blind, hairless and smaller than a cherry, yet it climbs up through its mother's fur all by itself to reach her milk.

Which animal builds dams across streams out of branches and mud?

A beaver builds its dam to turn a stream into a deep pond, so the doors of its home, the lodge, stay hidden under the water where enemies cannot get in.

Which is the biggest bird in the world?

Ostriches cannot fly, but they can run faster than any other bird.

A male peafowl with a big fan of feathers is called what?

A peacock is the male peafowl; he fans out his long train of feathers to impress the peahens.

Which colourful bird has a strong curved beak and can climb with it?

A parrot's hooked beak is strong enough to crack hard nuts, and it can hold its food up in one foot, the way we use a hand.

Which small animal can climb down a tree head first?

A squirrel can turn its back feet right round to grip the bark, so it can run down a tree head first; squirrels are rodents with big bushy tails.

A hedgehog's back is covered with what?

Spines are stiff, hollow hairs, and a frightened hedgehog curls into a tight ball so that they stick out in every direction.

Which orange vegetable grows under the ground?

A carrot is orange because it is packed with beta-carotene, which your body turns into vitamin A.

Which vegetable makes your eyes water when you cut it?

An onion gives off a gas when it is cut, and the gas stings your eyes and makes them water.

What shape is a rainbow?

A rainbow is an arc, part of a circle; from an aeroplane high above the rain it can look like a full circle.

What falls from the sky as soft white flakes on a very cold day?

Snow is made of tiny ice crystals; each crystal grows six arms as it falls through the cold air, which is why snowflakes have six sides.

What do we call the white fluffy shapes that drift across the sky?

Clouds are made of tiny water droplets so light that they float in the air; when the drops join up and grow heavy, they fall as rain.

What is wind?

Wind is moving air; when it blows hard enough it pushes sailing boats and hot air balloons along.

Thunder is the sound made by what?

Thunder is the sound of lightning: the flash heats the air so fast that it bursts outward with a bang, heard as a rumble or a crack.

Which planet is famous for its big bright rings?

Saturn has big bright rings made of chunks of ice and rock, and the planet itself is so light for its size that it would float in a giant bathtub.

Which planet is called the Red Planet?

Mars is called the Red Planet because its dusty ground is full of rusty iron that makes it look red-orange in the sky.

Which part of your body pumps blood?

The heart is a muscle about the size of your fist, and it beats faster when you run so that your body gets more blood.

Which part of your mouth helps you taste food?

The tongue is covered in tiny taste buds that tell sweet from salty, sour and bitter; it also moves food around when you chew and swallow.

Which body part do you hear with?

Your ears also keep you balanced: three tiny tubes of fluid deep inside each one tell your brain which way your head is moving.

Which body part do you see with?

Your eyes catch light and send messages to your brain, and every blink wipes them with a little tear fluid to wash dust away.

Which body part do you smell with?

Your nose is for smelling; special nerve cells inside it pick up scents from the air you breathe in.

Which vehicle carries lots of people along the road?

A bus is short for 'omnibus', Latin for 'for all', the name given to early horse-drawn coaches that anyone could pay to ride.

A train runs along what?

A railway track is a pair of steel rails that guide the train's wheels, so the driver never has to steer.

An aeroplane flies using its what?

An aeroplane flies on its wings: air rushing over their curved shape lifts the plane up, while an engine or propeller pushes it forward.

An ambulance takes sick or hurt people to which place?

An ambulance rushes patients to a hospital, where doctors and nurses treat them; paramedics look after the patient during the ride.

Which helper's job is to stop crime and keep people safe?

A police officer is nicknamed a cop, short for 'copper', from an old verb 'to cop' that means to catch or grab.

Who helps children learn at school?

A teacher in Germany, Friedrich Fröbel, started the first kindergarten and made up its name, which means 'children's garden'.

Who looks after your teeth and gums?

A dentist fills the small holes called cavities, which form when germs in your mouth turn sugar into acid that eats into a tooth.

Who grows crops and raises animals for our food?

A farmer once needed a team of horses to pull the plough; today a tractor does the pulling.

A chef is a person who is very good at what?

A chef is an expert at cooking; the word comes from French, short for chef de cuisine, the head of the kitchen.

Who brings letters and parcels to your house?

A mail carrier is also called a postman, after the 'posts': stations along the old mail roads where fresh riders and horses waited to carry the letters on.

Humpty Dumpty in the nursery rhyme is usually drawn as what?

Humpty Dumpty is usually drawn as an egg, which is why he broke when he fell off the wall; the rhyme itself never says he is an egg.

"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is what kind of song?

A lullaby, 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' sets Jane Taylor's poem 'The Star' to an old French tune that the alphabet song uses too, which is why you can sing your ABCs to it.

In the nursery rhyme, who sat on a tuffet eating curds and whey?

Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet eating her curds and whey, until a spider sat down beside her and frightened her away.

What does the Itsy Bitsy Spider climb up?

The Itsy Bitsy Spider climbs up the waterspout, a rain pipe; down comes the rain and washes the spider out, then the sun dries it and the spider climbs again.

Little Red Riding Hood walks through the woods to visit whom?

Little Red Riding Hood is taking food to her grandmother, who is ill; on the way she meets the Big Bad Wolf, who reaches the cottage first.

Cinderella's story is also known as The Little Glass what?

The Little Glass Slipper is the title of Charles Perrault's 1697 version of Cinderella; the prince finds her by the slipper she leaves behind.

Which animal runs up the clock in "Hickory Dickory Dock"?

The clock strikes one and the mouse runs down.

"Row, Row, Row Your Boat" is often sung in what special way?

As a round, each group starts the same tune a little after the one before, so the overlapping lines harmonise with one another.

In "The Wheels on the Bus", what goes "beep beep beep"?

The horn goes beep, beep, beep, while the wipers go swish, swish, swish and the baby on the bus cries wah, wah, wah.

Which hot melted rock comes out of a volcano?

Lava is called magma while it is still underground; once it pours out and cools it hardens into new rock, which is how the islands of Hawaii were built.

Which small pet fish is one of the most popular for a fish tank?

A goldfish is a kind of carp: people in China began breeding the rare golden ones from plain, dull-coloured fish more than a thousand years ago.

What is a grown-up male chicken called?

A rooster's crow at dawn is a warning to other roosters that this patch is his; the grown-up female is a hen.

A baby swan is called what?

A baby swan is called a cygnet; cygnets hatch covered in soft grey down and often ride on their parents' backs.

Which long-legged bird is famous for resting on just one leg?

A flamingo often rests on one leg with the other tucked up into its feathers; one idea is that this keeps the bare leg from losing heat in cold water.

After the elephant and the rhino, which is the next biggest land animal?

The hippopotamus weighs well over a tonne and is usually counted the third-largest land animal after elephants and rhinos; it spends the day in rivers to keep cool.

Which animal has one or two horns on its nose?

A rhinoceros has a name that means 'nose-horned', and its horn is not bone but keratin, the same stuff as your fingernails.

Which is the biggest of all the apes and monkeys?

The gorilla is hugely strong, yet it eats mostly leaves, stems and fruit; a big male beats his chest with cupped hands to scare rivals away.

Which very slow animal spends its life hanging upside down in trees?

A sloth has grooved fur where algae grows, and the tint it gives helps the sloth blend in with the treetops.

Which big sea animal has long tusks and whiskers?

A walrus uses its tusks like ice picks, hooking them into the ice to haul its heavy body out of the sea.

Which animal sprays a terrible smell from under its tail when it is scared?

A skunk sprays a foul-smelling liquid from glands under its tail when threatened; its black and white stripes warn other animals to keep away.

What do many bears do to get through the long, cold winter?

Bears hibernate: they sleep in their dens for months, living off stored fat, and their heartbeat slows right down.

Which is the fastest animal on land?

The cheetah can sprint faster than a car on a town road, but it can keep up that pace for less than a minute before it tires.

A leopard's coat is covered in spots grouped into what shapes?

Rosettes are rings of dark spots shaped a bit like roses; a cheetah has plain single dots instead, which is the easy way to tell the two cats apart.

A grown-up female sheep is called what?

A ewe lives in a flock that plays follow-the-leader: when one sheep sets off the rest go too, which is how one shepherd can look after so many.

In which small fish does the father carry the babies in a pouch on his front?

A seahorse mother puts her eggs into the father's pouch, and he carries them until the babies hatch, so it is the dad who gives birth.

Which lizard is famous for being able to change the colour of its skin?

A chameleon changes its skin colour to show its mood and to warm up or cool down; it also has a long sticky tongue that shoots out to catch insects.

What is a baby goose called?

A gosling follows the first moving thing it sees after hatching, which is nearly always its mother, a habit called imprinting.

Which baby farm animal says 'oink'?

A piglet is a baby pig; within days each piglet in a litter picks its own teat on the mother and goes back to the same one at every feed.

Clownfish, like Nemo, live safely inside which stinging sea creature?

A sea anemone gives the clownfish a safe home, and the fish chases away animals that would nibble it; a coat of slimy mucus keeps the clownfish from being stung.

Which bird uses its strong beak to drill and drum on trees to find insects?

A woodpecker hammers on trees with its beak and then uses its long tongue to pull bugs and grubs out of the holes it makes.

Which tiny bird can hover in the air like a helicopter while it drinks from flowers?

A hummingbird beats its wings so fast they make a humming sound, which is how it got its name; the wings can beat more than 50 times a second.

What is the big round object that goes around the Earth and shines in the night sky?

The Moon goes round the Earth about once a month and always shows us the same side; its glow is really sunlight bouncing off it.