Who Am I? A detective game for small people

Here's a riddle for your child. I have a hard shell, I move very slowly, and I can live for a very long time. Who am I?

Riddles like this are some of the oldest games in the world, and children never seem to tire of them. KidsZone turns them into a proper detective game called Who Am I?.

How it works

The game shows a few pictures and gives one clue at a time. In the screenshot, the pictures are a tortoise, a pufferfish and an ostrich, and the first clue is: "Its name is one word."

That clue alone isn't enough, because all three names are one word. So your child taps Another clue to get the next hint. With each clue, they rule out pictures until only one fits all of them. Then they tap the answer.

There's also a Hear the clues button, so children who can't read fluently yet can still play.

This is genuine deductive reasoning: holding several facts in mind at once and using them together to narrow down the answer. It's the same kind of thinking used in maths proofs, science experiments and, of course, detective stories.

Three levels

• Three clues: enough information to be sure, a good place to start
• Four clues: more to keep track of
• Fewest clues: the challenge is to guess correctly using as few clues as possible

That last level adds a lovely twist. Now your child has to decide when they know enough, which is a real thinking skill: not guessing too early, and not waiting longer than needed.

Balance, sorting and switching

The Think & Remember section has a few more games of this "grown-up thinking" kind:

• Balance Scale asks which side is heavier, an early taste of comparing and even equations.
• Sorting Machine is about sorting things by a rule.
• Switch It! changes the rule partway through.

Adapting when the rules change is something psychologists call cognitive flexibility. Most of us just call it thinking on your feet, and it's one of the most useful skills a child can build.

Turn it around

After a few rounds, ask your child to make up their own "Who am I?" for you. Choosing good clues, ones that narrow things down without giving the answer away, is even harder than solving them. You'll be impressed at how quickly they get good at it.

These games suit older primary children best, and parents tend to enjoy them too. Don't be surprised if you end up playing "just one more".

Who Am I? is also a quiet way to build vocabulary. Every clue uses describing words, like "slow", "striped" or "lives in water", and children start using them in their own speech without being taught.

Play Who Am I? on KidsZone.