People Share 85 Facts To Tell A 5-Year-Old That Will Blow Their Mind

When I first heard that there are more stars than there are grains of sand on all beaches in the world, I went on a mission to count all the grains out there to see if it’s true. Needless to say, "the world" was the size of my yard and I was five or so. You see where I’m going.

The truth is, kids are naturally curious and always ready to soak up the info they cannot entirely grasp. Tell ‘em about the Bermuda Triangle, and I guarantee they will be pulling all-nighters to solve the biggest puzzle on the planet.

So when one Redditor posted the question “What are some cool facts to tell a 5-year-old?" on r/AskReddit, people rolled up their sleeves. 1,400 comments later, the replies are in, and honestly, some of these may work on adults too.

#1

Astronomer here! Clap your hands once, and then clap them again a second later. The two claps were actually done about 30,000 miles apart thanks to the Earth's motion in space!

Image credits: Andromeda321

#2

There are numbers below zero

Image credits: Sergeant_Dimitri

#3

A group of zebras is called a dazzle and a group of giraffes is called a journey

Image credits: Magicbean96

Kids are naturally curious as they have that thirst for exploring how things work in life. No wonder some of these hard-to-believe facts can seriously blow their minds.

It turns out that not only is being curious a valuable trait on its own, it also contributes to academic achievement. This research has shown that cultivation of curiosity in children is linked to later aptitude in science. And this 2018 study has shown that the more curious the child, the more likely they may be to perform better in school—regardless of economic background—as suggested by a new study published in Pediatric Research.

#4

You can't lick your elbow

Image credits: CriticallyNormal

#5

Birds like chickens descended from dinosaurs. Watch them look at their chicken nuggets in absolute awe

Image credits: Sqweedward

#6

We will never experience tomorrow as by the time it's "tomorrow", it will be today

Image credits: Thanos696969

Susan Engel, a developmental psychologist at Harvard University and the author of The Hungry Mind: The Origins of Curiosity in Childhood, said that many teachers circle curiosity as the most important quality in a list for students to acquire in school.

However, it’s no secret that as a child grows, they become increasingly less curious in finding out all the things and less prone to ask questions. Susan explains this gap between intense curiosity and apparent lack of it in older kids as a “a by-product of that child's increased knowledge.”

#7

When they die, ants release pheromones attracting other ants to come and carry their dead bodies away to their graveyards.

Image credits: theloneshewolf

#8

You're more likely to be bitten by a shark AND struck by lightning than win the lottery.

Image credits: friendsforfood

#9

The oxygen that we breathe is the same oxygen that has been around since ancient times. In other words, the air you breathe may very well be the same air breathed by a dinosaur

“And if curiosity is, as psychologists say, the urge to explain the unexpected, then as more of everyday life becomes familiar, a child might encounter fewer unexpected objects and events.” That’s why 7-year-olds exhibit way less of it than when they were younger.

Meanwhile, author Elizabeth Gilbert suggests that curiosity is key to a creative life. She explains: “leading a creative life is to believe that there’s a reason that you’re into this thing, whatever it is.” And the only way to find out what that reason is is “to look a little closer.”

This is where your sense of curiosity comes into play. If you’re genuinely interested in explaining the unexplained, discovering the undiscovered, and finding answers even where there are none, you are likely on a good track.

#10

Sharks don't actually like eating people (we apparently taste bad to them), that's why most shark bites stop there. Most sharks bite people out of curiosity or because the person unwittingly provoked the shark

#11

There are butterflies that mimic the pattern of Monarch butterflies to avoid being eaten by predators because Monarch butterflies are poisonous and predators avoid eating them. In nature, this is called mimicry.

#12

Your body has more bones in it than the body of an adult because your bones haven't fused together yet.

#13

Spiders' webs when woven is stronger than steel.

#14

Turtles can breathe through their butts!

#15

The fear of long words is known as hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

#16

Unlike your ears or nose, eyes never grow.

#17

Humans can run for longer than any other animal.

#18

Pluto hasn't completed a lap around the sun since it was discovered

#19

There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on Earth

#20

It takes 8 minutes for light from the sun to reach the earth. So when we look at the sun, we're actually seeing how it was 8 minutes ago.

#21

By the standards of the universe,you are both stronger and weaker than millions of things

#22

Otters sometimes hold hands to sleep when in the water, so that they don't drift apart when floating in the sea

#23

There's a disease know as Münchmeyer's disease, wherein the afflicted's damaged muscle tissue is 'healed' with skeleton tissue, eventually culminating in the afflicted's muscle system being converted into a secondary skeletal system, hence it's a common name, second skeleton disease. It's completely incurable and largely untreatable. & since it symptoms usually don't appear until the age of 10, you could have it & we wouldn't know for another 5 years.
Thanks to a couple of quantum mechanical things that most adults would have problems comprehending, let alone a 5-year-old, it's entirely possible for what's know as a 'hard vacuum' (a place where no matter can exist) to spontaneously form anywhere in the universe. Once formed, it would propagate at lightspeed until it destroyed all matter in the universe

#24

Animals and people with white fur and red eyes are called albinos. Albinism is a condition caused by the lack of pigmentation, resulting in extremely pale skin, white hair, and red/purple eyes. Red/purple eyes are themselves the result of seeing blood vessels in the back of the eye.

#25

Every ‘c’ in ‘Pacific Ocean’ is pronounced differently

#26

Flamingos get their pink colour from shrimp they eat

#27

There are bugs that poop on your eyebrow

#28

Octopus have part of their brain all over their body!

#29

Octopuses have 3 hearts Plus they have 8 arms, not tentacles And they have blue blood

#30

Your ears never stop growing.

#31

The core of the Earth is hotter than the surface of the Sun.

#32

A person gives off more heat than a person-sized piece of the sun.

#33

Dogs can tell when your coming home by how much of your scent is left in the house if you have a daily routine

#34

That ants belong to a community that helps each other survive through sheer teamwork.

#35

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its whole brain

#36

Snails can have up to 25000 teeth

#37

Horses can't puke.

#38

A million seconds is a little over 11 days, but a billion seconds is more than 31 years.

#39

The smell of rain is caused by gases released by bacteria in the earth in reaction to rainwater. It's called petrichor, petri meaning stone.

#40

Elephants have special graveyards and mourn their fellow elephants when they die.

#41

A single little brown bat can eat up to 1000 mosquitoes in a single hour.

#42

Polar bears don't really have white fur. Their fur is actually translucent, but due to the way it reflects light, it appears white. (This may or may not be true of all white-furred/white-haired mammals, I'm not sure.)

#43

A lot of dinosaurs had feathers, and birds are descended from dinosaurs. Because hair and feathers break down much more easily than bones, it's possible many dinosaurs had fur/feathers, but because all that remains of them are bones, archaeologists can only speculate what they looked like. There's a very interesting post talking about this somewhere on the internet, I recommend looking it up. According to that post, our modern conception and depictions of dinosaurs is like if scientists in the future tried to recreate the dogs and cats of today based solely on their bones, without any fur.

#44

Sea turtles live 200 years.

#45

Starfish actually walk along the ocean floor, so slow you can't see it, and they have no brains.

#46

Many rodents, (mice, rats, moles) front teeth are always growing...

#47

Bats never leave their young behind. They climb on the mother when finding a new place to roost.

#48

Sharks have been around longer than trees have.

#49

People have less than 2 arms on average

#50

Thunder is the sound of lightning but because the light is faster than the sound they take place at separate times

#51

Every E in “Mercedes” is pronounced differently

#52

Flies only sleep 75 minutes a day.

#53

Mushrooms are more closely related to animals than plants.

#54

If you make an animal sound at the animal, chances are it will answer you back.

Turkeys are a good example, they answer almost every time. Sheep are quite regular as well.

#55

The weight of all the ants in the world is greater than the weight off all the humans in the world.

#56

Some pigeons can make a whistle with their feathers that can alert an entire flock that there’s danger. What’s more is that there’s a specific sound and amplitude and tone to it, it’s not random

#57

You can't come up with a new color

#58

Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backward

#59

Elephants cannot jump.

#60

Ancient Egypt was more ancient to the Romans than Ancient Rome is to us

#61

LEGO is the world’s leading tire manufacturer.

#62

Some ants can learn to farm aphids for their honey as humans farm cows for milk

#63

Poland had a bear In the military .

#64

Sloths can't defecate off a tree, they have to climb down - but due to their slowness in eating too, they don't have to very often

#65

When you look up at the night sky and see a star, it's because a little particle of light called a photon shot out of the star and traveled across the vast distance of space and time to land safely in your eye. You're catching a little bit of ancient star whenever you see one

#66

Cats and kittens can fit their bodies almost anywhere they can squeeze their heads into, so be sure to exercise the utmost care and caution when kitten-proofing your house.

Their adorable little heads can fit just about anywhere!

#67

The largest lake in South America is lake Titicaca

#68

1,500 earths could fit inside Jupiter.

#69

There is a number so big you can't even use the entire universe worth of atoms to write it.

#70

Brocolli is man-made. It was bred out of wild cabbage by human beings. It didn't appear naturally until human beings created it

#71

Sharks can sense the location of other creatures via their muscle movement

#72

The human head weighs 8 pounds.

#73

You can fit all the planets tip to tip in the distance between the earth and the moon

#74

Queen bees are created by bee larvae being fed royal jelly.

#75

Many common household plants and flowers are poisonous, such as hosta, buttercups, azalea, etc.

#76

There are species of jellyfish that are thought by scientists to be immortal. The only way they can die is by disease or injury.

#77

Lizards can make their tail fall off, and if they lose their tail, it will regrow.

#78

There are more possible games of chess than there are atoms in the observable universe

#79

Tigers are cats. Domestic House cats are cousins of the tiger.

Also, hyenas are more closely related to cats than dogs.

#80

The reason your veins look blue but blood is red is because it's harder for red light waves to travel through solid objects than blue/purple waves. (Optional: that's why you can wear a red bra under a white shirt and you can't see it.)

#81

Mammals have a turning point in sleep patterns. Smaller mammals sleep longer and it gets shorter up until about the size of a black bear, then it starts to get longer again.

#82

Every (if I can remember) 7 years your cells regenerate meaning every 7 years you basically have a completely different body.

#83

One day you will struggle to remember this entire year.

#84

Everyone was once the youngest person on earth

#85

Dogs don't just have a great sense of smell, they can actually smell each individual ingredient. So, a dog can't just smell that cookie you're eating, they can tell you what it's made of too. That's why police tracking dogs are so clever.

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