Family quiz questions and answers that work for all ages

In short

• Here are 50 family quiz questions with answers, in five rounds plus two tie-breakers.
• The first round is for the children, the second is for everyone, and the kids versus grown-ups round lets each side show off.
• There is a UK round and a short Christmas round for a staff family party.
• I’ve checked every answer. Anything with two defensible answers is out.
• Mix the ages on every team, so a seven-year-old and a grandparent both have something to win.

Good family quiz questions have to work for a nine-year-old and their grandad at the same table. That’s harder than it sounds. Most lists online are kids’ trivia that bores the adults, or a pub quiz the children can’t touch.

I’ve written the rounds below for a family fun day, a staff family event or a festival tent. The children will win some, the adults will win others, and in a couple nobody has a head start.

What makes good family quiz questions?

Good family quiz questions give every age group a round it can win, have one clear answer and can be read out once without explaining. A table only switches off when it knows it’s beaten, so make sure nobody knows that until the last round.

• Put the youngest first. Let the children answer the kids’ round before any adult opens their mouth.
• Keep it short. Ten questions a round, three or four rounds, and the children are still with you at the end.
• Check every answer. A parent will always know the one exception.
• Write down what you’ll accept. A baby frog can be a tadpole or a froglet, so decide before the night, not during the argument.

Family quiz questions for kids

The easy round. Under-12s only, and grown-ups keep their hands down.

1. What is the name of the snowman in Frozen? Answer: Olaf.
2. Who wrote The Gruffalo? Answer: Julia Donaldson, with pictures by Axel Scheffler.
3. What is Peppa Pig’s little brother called? Answer: George.
4. In The Very Hungry Caterpillar, what does the caterpillar eat on Monday? Answer: one apple.
5. Which planet is known as the Red Planet? Answer: Mars.
6. What is a baby frog called? Answer: a tadpole (accept froglet).
7. What do bees make? Answer: honey.
8. Which animal is the tallest in the world? Answer: the giraffe.
9. What is Bluey’s little sister called? Answer: Bingo.
10. What number do you ring in the UK in an emergency? Answer: 999 (accept 112).

What are good family quiz questions and answers for all ages?

The best family quiz questions and answers for all ages are ones a child might know from school and an adult might half-remember: animals, the body, the map and a bit of mental arithmetic.

1. Which bird is the fastest in the world when it dives? Answer: the peregrine falcon, at around 200mph.
2. How many baby teeth does a child usually have? Answer: twenty.
3. The Statue of Liberty was a gift to the United States from the people of which country? Answer: France.
4. How many days are there in a leap year? Answer: 366.
5. In which country are the pyramids of Giza? Answer: Egypt.
6. How many players does one netball team have on the court? Answer: seven.
7. What is the name of the imaginary line around the middle of the Earth? Answer: the equator.
8. Which ocean lies between the UK and America? Answer: the Atlantic.
9. Which fruit is dried to make a raisin? Answer: the grape.
10. How many minutes are there in an hour and a half? Answer: 90.

What are some family quiz questions for a UK crowd?

Family quiz questions for a UK crowd work best when they come from home: national symbols, British children’s TV and stories every generation grew up with.

1. What is the national animal of Scotland? Answer: the unicorn.
2. Which animal is on the flag of Wales? Answer: a red dragon.
3. Which flower is the national emblem of Scotland? Answer: the thistle.
4. How many countries make up the United Kingdom? Answer: four: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
5. What is the capital of Wales? Answer: Cardiff.
6. Which cheese does Wallace love most, in Wallace & Gromit? Answer: Wensleydale.
7. Which detective lives at 221B Baker Street? Answer: Sherlock Holmes.
8. In Roald Dahl’s story, who owns the chocolate factory that Charlie visits? Answer: Willy Wonka.
9. Which BBC children’s programme, first shown in October 1958, gives out badges? Answer: Blue Peter.
10. Which giant wheel on the South Bank of the Thames looks out across London? Answer: the London Eye.

Which fun family quiz questions do kids win?

The fun family quiz questions children win are about games and cartoons the adults have only heard through a bedroom door. Then you turn it round, and the grown-ups get five about life before smartphones.

Kids’ half:

1. In Minecraft, which green mob hisses and then explodes? Answer: a creeper.
2. What type of Pokémon is Pikachu? Answer: Electric.
3. What is the name of the boy who leads the pups in Paw Patrol? Answer: Ryder.
4. In the Super Mario games, what is the name of Mario’s brother, who dresses in green? Answer: Luigi.
5. What is the name of the cowboy in Toy Story? Answer: Woody (accept Sheriff Woody).

Grown-ups’ half:

1. Before Decimal Day in February 1971, how many old pennies made a shilling? Answer: twelve).
2. And how many shillings made a pound? Answer: twenty.
3. Which UK TV channel started broadcasting on 2 November 1982? Answer: Channel 4.
4. Which egg-shaped digital pet from Japan first went on sale in 1996? Answer: the Tamagotchi.
5. What was the name of the BBC’s teletext service, switched off in 2012? Answer: Ceefax.

Score the two halves separately. A child who beats their dad on Pokémon will talk about it all the way home.

Christmas family quiz questions

For a staff family Christmas party, or the last weekend before the schools break up.

1. In “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, what did my true love give to me on the first day? Answer: a partridge in a pear tree.
2. Which of Santa’s reindeer has a red nose? Answer: Rudolph.
3. Who wrote A Christmas Carol, first published in December 1843? Answer: Charles Dickens.
4. In A Christmas Carol, what is the name of Scrooge’s dead business partner, who comes back as a ghost? Answer: Jacob Marley.
5. What does Scrooge say about Christmas before the ghosts change his mind? Answer: “Bah! Humbug!”
6. In the poem “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”, how many reindeer pull Santa’s sleigh? Answer: eight.
7. Which plant with white berries do people kiss under? Answer: mistletoe.
8. On what date is Boxing Day? Answer: 26 December.

What is a good family quiz tie-breaker?

A good family quiz tie-breaker has a number for an answer, so the closest team wins and a child can guess as well as an adult. Try this one: in what year was the first Harry Potter book published? The answer is 1997.

Need a second? Ask how many days there are from the day of the quiz to Christmas Day. Work it out before you start, and the children will be closer than you’d think.

How do you run a family table quiz at a fun day or staff family event?

To run a family table quiz, put at least one child on every team, keep each round to ten questions and give the children a job: reading out the answers, holding the answer sheet or naming the team.

• Mix the ages. Four adults against four children isn’t a contest. Split families across tables if you need to.
• Play the kids’ round first. It settles the children and gets every table on the scoreboard.
• Read each question twice. A child who missed the start gets a second go.
• Fill the gaps. At a fun day the quiz is up against the bouncy castle, and the bouncy castle usually wins. Run it in short bursts between the other attractions instead of one long sitting.
• Two prizes. One for the best team overall, one for the best score by the youngest player.

I’ve hosted family festivals with crowds past 80,000, and the rule is the same at any size: you can’t afford a dead moment, because people are always one dull minute from drifting off to whatever is happening next door. For more formats, from picture rounds to jokers, there are plenty of quiz round ideas, and the stage side of a big day is on the festival presenter page.

How I run a family quiz on my own software

At a family event I don’t use a pen and an answer sheet. I run the quiz on software I built myself, so kids and adults play on phones and nobody waits for a captain to write the answer down. There’s nothing to download: it opens in the phone’s browser, so a younger child can play on a parent’s phone.

How these rounds play on the night:

• On every phone. With Quiz Live, every player answers on their own phone, scoring for being right and being quick, with a leaderboard after every question. Team mode puts each family or table on the board together.
• With no right answers. In Common Ground, everyone votes and the points go to whoever matches the room. A six-year-old can beat the managing director, which is the whole point.
• On the big screen. Family Fortunes puts two sides of the room head to head on a survey board, with three strikes and the steal. I rotate the players every round, so as many people as possible get a go at the front, grandparents and six-year-olds included.

Every game is written for the crowd in front of me, and the same format flexes from a boardroom to a family field. A staff family day can carry a round about the company alongside the Gruffalo. At one family event I ran The Generation Game with an egg-and-spoon race judged on the silliness of the walk, not on who won.

More quiz guides

• Family fun day ideas for the field and the stage.

If you’d rather hand it over, I’ll pick the games, write the rounds and host it as your quiz master. One host, the whole day. Call me on 07596 851647 and tell me about the crowd.