Fun Facts for Kids That Are Sure to Impress
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Want to inspire a love of learning? Encourage curiosity with these 100 fun facts for kids.
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Fact checked by Karen CilliFact checked by Karen CilliLooking to impress your kids with a fun fact of the day to get them chatting? It can be tough to find fun facts for kids that are age appropriate and still shocking. They already know that tomatoes are fruits and that snakes are able to smell with their tongues–so we're here to help you up the ante.Did you know that ketchup was once sold as medicine back in the 1800s? Or that there are more trees on Earth than in our entire galaxy? Yeah, we didn’t think so. Your kids will be mind blown by our list of 100 fun facts about everything from ancient history to everyday life.
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Science Fun Facts for KidsThe fear of long words, hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, is 36 letters long.The chemical composition of comets makes them smell like rotten eggs, burning matches, and almonds.Even though they look weightless, a cloud can weigh more than a million pounds!Hot water freezes faster than cold water due to the velocities of the particles within.You are born with over 300 bones in your body but, as you grow older, you’ll only have 206.Petrichor is the name of the scent of rain. This distinct scent is created by plant oils and bacteria.Human noses can smell up to 1 trillion different scents.The smallest bone in your body is inside your ear and is called the stapes bone.Your heart is around the same size as a clenched fist.Water can exist in all three states (liquid, solid, and gas) at once.Peanut butter can be turned into diamonds at extremely high temperatures and pressure.The sun only rises in the North Pole once a year.Despite covering 70% of the Earth, only 1% of our planet’s water is drinkable.The brain named itself.Animal Fun Facts for KidsAnts don’t have lungs; they breathe through tiny openings along the sides of their body.Because of their dense bones, hippos can't swim.Butterflies taste food with their feet.Some animals can be allergic to humans because of our dander (dead skin cells).Giraffes use low-frequency humming to talk to each other.Not only are ostriches flightless birds, their eyes are bigger than their brains.The Greenland shark can live to be almost 300 years old.Panda bears are born pink while flamingos are born white.The Galapagos giant tortoise can weigh up to 550 pounds, which is as much as a brown bear.Did you know that polar bears have black skin?The blue whale is the largest animal on earth weighing as much as 30 elephants; its tongue alone can weigh up to 8,000 pounds!Speaking of elephants, they are able to recognize themselves in mirrors.Cows can have best friends.You can hear the roar of a lion up to three miles away.Not only do rats have the ability to laugh, they’ll do so when tickled.Only female mosquitoes drink blood.Space Fun Facts for KidsThere are more trees on Earth (3.04 trillion) than stars in the Milky Way (100-400 billion).Scientists speculate that 2.2 million pounds of diamonds rain down on Saturn every year.Solar flares can be as powerful as millions of atom bombs going off at once.Scientists believe that it is impossible to burp in space without throwing up.Astronauts say that the moon smells like used gunpowder.There is a mountain on an asteroid that’s three times bigger than Mount Everest.The average temperature in space is -455 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s cold!Sound can not exist in space due to the lack of particles needed for vibration.The sun is so big it can fit over 1 million Earths inside of it.Earth isn’t the only planet with water—NASA recently found water on Mars.One day on Venus takes almost an entire Earth year.
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History Fun Facts for KidsTug-of-war was an Olympic sport from 1900 to 1920.George Washington gave the shortest inaugural address at 135 words.A horse once became a senator in Ancient Rome.The world’s oldest parliament is in Iceland.Abraham Lincoln stored important papers inside his famous top hat.The shortest war in history, the Anglo-Zanzibar War, only lasted 38 minutes.50-100 million years ago the Sahara Desert was once underwater.Eight U.S. presidents have been left handed, including Barack Obama.Napoleon was once almost defeated by a herd of rabbits.While normal years are 365 days, 46 BC lasted 445 days because it included two additional leap months by order of Julius Caesar.The Fourth of July wasn’t an official holiday until 1941.George Washington didn’t have wooden teeth; his dentures were made of ivory and gold.Mayans once worshiped turkeys as gods.Oxford University, founded in 1096, is older than the Aztec Empire.The most successful pirate in history was a woman named Ching Shih from China.Trying to trick German bombers, the French built a fake version of the city of Paris during World War II.In the Victorian era there were special tea cups made for men with mustaches so they didn’t get wet while drinking.Genghis Khan created one of the first ever international postal services.Dinosaur Fun Facts for KidsThe smallest dinosaur ever discovered is the Oculudentavis—it was roughly the size of a bee hummingbird.The dinosaur with the longest name is the Micropachycephalosaurus, with 23 letters.Believe it or no, birds are descendants of dinosaurs.Dinosaurs may not have been the scaly creatures we pictured, some scientists belief they were covered in feathers!Sharks are older than both trees and dinosaurs with the earliest evidence of them dating back 450 million years ago.There were over 900 different types of dinosaurs.All four-legged dinosaurs were herbivores.All dinosaurs were reptiles.Dinosaur fossils have been found on every continent, including Antarctica.The longest dinosaur in the world, the Argentinosaurus, was as big as four fire trucks.Pterodactyls aren’t dinosaurs, they’re pterosaurs.The longest dinosaur tail was 46 feet long and belonged to the diplodocuses.Charles Dickens once included a dinosaur, the megalosaurus, in a novel.If you licked a dinosaur fossil it would stick to your tongue very slightly due to its porosity.Some dinosaurs had hollow bones.Food Fun Facts for KidsDespite their name, oranges were originally green but their color changes depending on the temperature of the environment they are grown in.An 11-year-old accidentally invented popsicles in 1905.Ancient civilizations used to use cocoa beans (the stuff used to make chocolate) as money.In the 1830s, ketchup used to be sold as a medicine to cure indigestion.Applesauce was the first food to ever be eaten by a human in space.Fruit salad trees aren’t made up—they’re real trees that can grow different fruits on it.Honey never goes bad thanks to its super high sugar concentration.Figs aren’t fruits at all, they’re actually flowers that bloom inside the pod.Potatoes were the first food to be grown in space.The inside of Kit Kat bars are made of crushed up Kit Kats!Pumpkins are actually a part of the berry family.Hamburgers were called “liberty steaks” during World War II.Raspberries are a member of the rose family.Chickpeas, almonds, and broccoli contain almost as much protein as steak.The Caesar salad was invented in Tijuana, Mexico by a man named Caesar Cardini.Random Fun Facts for KidsThe average American eats approximately two pounds of dead insects or insect parts a year.Your irrational fears can be genetic based on your ancestors' experiences.Tablecloths were once used as giant napkins.The average person blinks about 28,800 times a day. That’s about 20 times a minute!Sneezes can travel up to 100 miles per hour (and spread over 100,000 germs!).You will spend an average of six years of your life dreaming.Only 10% of the world’s population is left-handed.About 5% of adults talk in their sleep.You are always looking at your nose, but your brain actively chooses to ignore it.In your lifetime you can walk enough to circle the globe three times.Speaking of walking, your feet can produce up to a pint of sweat a day.
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