20 Long Block Brain Boosters- Mrs. Pope’s Class… for when my students need to wake up…

Brain Booster #1What is being described in this riddle?

When I am filled,I can point the way.When I am empty,Nothing moves me.

Brain Booster #1What is being described in this riddle?

When I am filled,I can point the way.When I am empty,Nothing moves me.

A glove

Brain Booster #2 Use all twenty-six letters of the

English alphabet to complete the following 13 words, but use each letter only once.

1. b a __ __ a i n 2. l __ __ g e r 3. d y __ __ s t y 4. __ __ g o t e 5. s a __ __ a t i o n 6. d i __ __ p a n 7. p u m __ __ i n 8. d e __ __ a y 9. b o __ __ a r 10.d i __ __ i t 11.s u n __ __ r n 12.o b l __ __ u e 13.l i __ __ o f f

Brain Booster #2 Use all twenty-six letters of the

English alphabet to complete the following 13 words, but use each letter only once.

1. b a __ __ a i n 2. l __ __ g e r 3. d y __ __ s t y 4. __ __ g o t e 5. s a __ __ a t i o n 6. d i __ __ p a n 7. p u m __ __ i n 8. d e __ __ a y 9. b o __ __ a r 10.d i __ __ i t 11.s u n __ __ r n 12.o b l __ __ u e 13.l i __ __ o f f

1. bargain 2. lodger 3. dynasty 4. zygote 5. salvation 6. dishpan 7. pumpkin 8. deejay 9. boxcar 10.dimwit 11.sunburn 12.oblique 13.liftoff

Brain Booster #3These words all belong to the same logical family because they have something in common: •footloose •committed •successful •address •millennium

Which of the following words belong to the same family? •silly •ancestor •millstone •heedless

Heedless. (All the words in the family have two pairs of double letters.)

Brain Booster #4 For each of the following four words, come up with another English word that uses all THE SAME letters but in a different order. The four words you come up with will rhyme with one another:

1. ONSET 2. NEWS 3. WRONG 4. HORNET

1. STONE 2. SEWN 3. GROWN 4. THRONE

Brain Booster #5 Change each of the following words to a different word by placing two letters in between the letters indicated. The two new letters have to be consecutive—that is, they have to come right after one another in the alphabet, such as the letters IJ or RS. For example, you can change BE to BABE by putting the letters AB in between B and E.

1. SIT (put two consecutive letters between I and T) 2. YOUNGER (put two consecutive letters between G and

E) 3. BAY (put two consecutive letters between A and Y) 4. BEND (put two consecutive letters between E and N) 5. HONEY (put two consecutive letters between E and Y)

• SIGHT, YOUNGSTER, BALMY, BEHIND, HONESTY

Brain Booster #6 What determined the order of girls'

and boys' names in the lists below?

Girls: Heather, Ellen, Laura, Anne, Nancy

Boys: Andy, Ted, Mike, Vic

In the list of girls' names, the second letter of each name is the first letter of the next. In the list of boys' names, the second-to-last letter in each name is the last letter of the following name.

Brain Booster #7 For each of the following clues, what is a synonym that contains the letters CAT?

1. Baseball position 2. Copy 3. What you get with a doctor's

prescription 4. Underground cemetery 5. Time off from school or work 6. Ten-event contest 7. Disaster 8. Mimic 9. Cows 10.Teacher

1.catcher 2.duplicate 3.medication 4.catacomb 5.vacation 6.decathlon 7.catastrophe 8.copycat 9.cattle 10.educator

Brain Booster #8 Each of the following twelve words needs a pair of identical

letters to complete it. Your challenge is to guess where the missing letters go in each word, and then figure out the right letters. (No proper names, please.)

HINT #1: In some of the words, the missing letters are vowels; in others, the missing letters are consonants.

HINT #2: At least one of the words can have more than one possible correct answer.

Example: HAYAnswer: HAPPY

1. BATTLE, BABBLE

2. CATTLE 3. LITTLE 4. MOOSE 5. BEETLE 6. FOOLISH 7. APPEAR 8. WIGGLE 9. MILLION 10.SUMMER 11.TEETH OR

TOOTH 12.JIFFY

(1) BALE (7) AEAR(2) CALE (8) WILE(3) LILE (9) MIION(4) MSE (10) SUER(5) BTLE (11) TTH(6) FLISH (12) JIY

Brain Booster #9A Food Riddle  

Read the following classic description, and figure out what is being described.

Throw out my outer.Keep my inner.Eat my outer.Throw out my inner.

An ear of corn

Brain Booster #10Just in Time 

What occurs once in every minute, twice in every moment, yet never in a thousand years?

  The letter “m”

Brain Booster #11Hink Pink  

Hink pinks are one-syllable words that rhyme; hinky pinkies are two-syllable words that rhyme; hinkety pinketies are three-syllable words that rhyme. For example, what's a hinky pinky for a humorous animal with long ears? Answer: funny bunny. Try these:

1. What's a hink pink for an obese feline? 2. What's a hinky pinky for an improved written

communication? 3. What's a hinkety pinkety for a believable food? 4. What's a hinky pinky for turbulent sauce? 5. What's a hink pink for something you see that

glows?

 

1. fat cat 2. better letter 3. credible edible 4. wavy gravy 5. bright sight

Brain Booster #12Just in Time 

What occurs once in every minute, twice in every moment, yet never in a thousand years?

  The letter “m”

Brain Booster #13 A palindrome is a word (or phrase or

sentence) that reads the same from left to right as it does from right to left. For example, a palindrome that means "trick or joke" is gag. For each of the definitions below, suggest a palindrome.

1. Midday 2. Title for a lady 3. Tier 4. Sound a chick makes 5. Part of the human body 6. Something that fails to work 7. An entertainer's short-term job 8. Short, quick, down-and-up motion 9. Screwball 10.Sound a horn makes

 

1. noon 2. madam 3. level 4. peep 5. eye 6. dud 7. gig 8. bob 9. kook 10.toot

Brain Booster #14Startling!  

You can take 1 letter out of the 9-letter word startling so that without rearranging letters you will have a real 8-letter word: starling, which is a bird. Continue to remove 1 letter at a time to make new English words until you get down to a 1-letter English word.

Remember: Do not rearrange any of the letters; just remove the letters 1 at a time to create 7 more real words.

 

The words are startling, starling, staring, string, sting, sing, sin, in, I.

Brain Booster #15You’ve done word scrambles before, but for some reason people find this one particularly difficult. Can you work with the following letters to spell a 10-letter English word?

TTNENUMROA

    

TOURNAMENT

Brain Booster #16Walking Dictionary  

Delphinia is a walking dictionary. She isn't satisfied unless she's showing off her huge vocabulary. Here's how Delphinia says these five well-known proverbs. See if you can figure out how most of us would say them:

 

  • The early

bird catches the worm.

• Better safe than sorry.

• Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies.

• When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

• Discretion is the better part of valor.

1. The previously arriving feathered, winged biped captures the invertebrate crawler.

2. It's vastly preferable to remain unscathed than to be forced into repentance.

3. If you refrain from interrogating me, I'll articulate to you no prevarications.

4. When the terrain becomes arduous, the resolute become vigorous.

5. Heedful prudence is the preferred component of intrepidity.

Brain Booster #17What's the Word?  

What 5-letter word can you add to the beginning or end of the words below to make a familiar word or phrase?

white, dish, proof, wings, hole, salt

     

WATER

Brain Booster #18What's the Word?  

What 5-letter word can you add to the beginning or end of the words below to make a familiar word or phrase?

white, dish, proof, wings, hole, salt

    

WATERwhite water, dishwater, waterproof, water wings, water hole, salt water

Brain Booster #19Yes or No? 

Answer the following question with a simple "yes" or "no":

If the day before the day after the day before today was hotter than the day after the day before today, was the day before today hotter than today?      Yes. The day before the day after the day before today was yesterday. The day after the day before today is today. And the day before today was yesterday. So yes, yesterday was hotter than today.

Brain Booster #20The creator of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, was a word lover. Here's a kind of game he played. It's called a word ladder. Remove one letter from word #1, and replace it with another letter at the same place to make word #2; then remove a letter from word #2 and replace it with another letter at the same place to make word #3; and so on until you end up, at word #6, with an antonym for word #1.

L  E  S  S (1) _  _  _  _ (2) _  _  _  _ (3) _  _  _  _ (4) _  _  _  _ (5) _  _  _  _

 

    1. L E S S 2. L O S S 3. L O S E 4. L O V E 5. M O V

E 6. M O R

E