70 free Summer Trivia for Kids trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
59 free Summer trivia for kids questions with answers. Summer trivia for kids should feel like a day at the beach, not a test. This quiz is written for 8 to 12 year olds and covers the things that make summer summer: why the days get long, what causes a sunburn, how a popsicle was invented by an 11-year-old, why fireflies glow, where seashells come from, how many arms a starfish has, and what a s'more is squeezed between. There are questions on summer holidays around the world (the Fourth of July, Canada Day, Bastille Day), summer sports (the Olympics, surfing, beach volleyball, baseball), summer movies and cartoons (Finding Nemo, Lilo & Stitch, Phineas and Ferb, Grease), and classic backyard toys like the Super Soaker, the Frisbee and the hula hoop. Most questions are easy, with a handful of trickier ones so older kids and grown-ups have something to chew on. Every answer has been checked against encyclopaedia and official sources and links to where it came from, so parents and teachers can trust it for a classroom quiz, a rainy afternoon, a road trip or a summer camp game.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which three months make up summer in the Northern Hemisphere, according to weather forecasters?
June, July and August
South of the equator it is the other way round: summer there is December, January and February.
Q 02When it is summer in the Northern Hemisphere, what season is it in the Southern Hemisphere?
Winter
That is why Australians can have a barbecue on the beach at Christmas.
Q 03What do we call the day in June with the most daylight in the Northern Hemisphere?
The summer solstice
It falls on June 20 or 21, when the North Pole is tilted as far toward the Sun as it gets.
Q 04Why do we have seasons?
Earth's axis is tilted
The tilt is about 23.4 degrees, which lifts the Sun higher in the sky and makes days longer in summer.
Q 05About how long does sunlight take to travel from the Sun to Earth?
8 minutes
The Sun is roughly 150 million kilometres away, a distance astronomers call one astronomical unit.
Q 06Which planet-warming star is mostly made of hydrogen and helium?
The Sun
Every second the Sun's core turns about 600 billion kilograms of hydrogen into helium.
Q 07What is a sunburn caused by?
Ultraviolet rays from the Sun
UV light damages the skin, which is why sunscreen with a good SPF rating matters at the pool.
Q 08What do the letters SPF on a bottle of sunscreen stand for?
Sun protection factor
The scale was introduced in 1974 by Franz Greiter, whose first glacier cream from 1946 was only about SPF 2.
Q 09Which frozen treat did an 11-year-old reputedly invent in 1905 by leaving a stirred drink outside overnight?
The Popsicle
Frank Epperson of Oakland patented his 'Epsicle' in 1923, and the story is still printed on Popsicle boxes.
Q 10The ice cream cone became famous at a World's Fair in 1904 in which US city?
St. Louis
Cones existed before, but that fair made them a craze; cotton candy was a hit at the same fair under the name Fairy Floss.
Q 11Cotton candy was co-invented in 1897 by John Wharton and William Morrison, who had which surprising job?
Dentist
It sold 68,655 boxes as Fairy Floss at the 1904 World's Fair.
Q 12A s'more is a toasted marshmallow and chocolate squeezed between what?
Graham crackers
Girl Scouts were making 'Some Mores' by the mid-1920s, and the short name arrived in the 1930s.
Q 13Marshmallows are named after a plant that grows where?
In marshes
The marsh-mallow plant's root was once used to make a medicinal sweet; today's version is mostly sugar, water and gelatin.
Q 21Fireflies are not flies at all. What kind of insect are they?
Beetles
There are more than 2,400 species, and their glow is thought to have started as a warning that the larvae taste bad.
Q 22Some North American cicadas spend a very long time underground before coming out all at once. How long?
13 or 17 years
They are the periodical cicadas of the genus Magicicada, and their song is one of the loudest insect sounds there is.
Q 23Which way do fully grown sunflowers face?
East
Young sunflowers follow the Sun across the sky each day, then swing back east overnight; the tallest on record was 10.9 m.
Q 14Botanically, a watermelon is what kind of fruit?
A berry
Its special berry with a hard rind is called a pepo; the modern watermelon was first grown in Sudan.
Q 15Which country grows nearly two thirds of the world's watermelons?
China
Seedless watermelons were first developed by Japanese scientists back in 1939.
Q 16In 1676 a company began selling lemonade from tanks carried on vendors' backs in which city?
Paris
Kids in the US and Canada still set up lemonade stands every summer to earn pocket money.
Q 17The tiny 'seeds' on the outside of a strawberry are actually what?
Little fruits called achenes
Botanically the strawberry is not what most people assume, and it belongs to the rose family.
Q 18A peach with smooth, fuzz-free skin is called what?
A nectarine
Peaches were first grown in China; their scientific name persica comes from Persia, where Europeans first met them.
Q 19Which fruit is the national fruit of India, Pakistan and the Philippines?
Mango
The mango tree is also the national tree of Bangladesh.
Q 20Christopher Columbus was the first European to see a pineapple, on which Caribbean island in 1493?
Guadeloupe
The wild plant comes from the river country between southern Brazil and Paraguay.
Q 24Where does a grasshopper have its ears?
On its abdomen
Its powerful hind legs are for leaping away from danger, and its front legs are for grabbing food.
Q 25Which mosquitoes bite people?
Only the females
All mosquitoes drink flower nectar; females of many species also need blood to make eggs.
Q 26Which butterfly makes a famous long migration each autumn from the northern US and Canada to Mexico?
Monarch
Its caterpillars eat only milkweed, and its orange, black and white wings warn birds that it tastes awful.
Q 27How many stages does a butterfly's life have?
Four
Egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, adult: this is called complete metamorphosis.
Q 28Of the roughly 20,000 kinds of bee, how many make honey?
7
More than 90 percent of bee species live alone rather than in hives.
Q 29What are most seashells found on the beach made by?
Mollusks like snails and clams
The shells are mostly calcium carbonate, which is why they last so long after the animal is gone.
Q 30How many arms do most starfish have?
Five
They are echinoderms, not fish, and most can regrow a lost arm.