The rebus is big. Rules for solving puzzles, how to solve them

A fairy tale about how kittens learned to solve puzzles

Rules for solving puzzles for children and adults with presentation


Tolstikova Tatyana Aleksandrovna, teacher of the Nenets Sanatorium Boarding School, Naryan-Mar
Description: I bring to your attention a fairy tale, by reading which the children will learn the rules of solving puzzles. The material may be interesting and useful to everyone who wants to comprehend this simple and very fascinating science.
Target: Introducing the rules for solving puzzles
Tasks: Develop logical thinking, intelligence,
Develop fantasy, imagination,
Cultivate a love for pets.

Once upon a time there lived a girl Masha who loved to read books and solve puzzles. And even more, she loved to play with little kittens, take care of them and teach them the rules of cultural behavior.


And how the kittens loved her! At every free minute they ran to their girlfriend. Mashenka immediately put aside her business and frolicked with the restless guests.
Once, during one such game, the smartest kitten, Murzik, dropped Mashin’s book, and the kittens saw on the page that opened some pictures with squiggles, letters and numbers. The kittens began to run around the book and look into it with caution. And Mashenka laughed and began to calm them down:
- Don't be afraid, these are just puzzles. Would you like me to teach you how to guess them?
“Here’s another thing,” said Chernysh, “I’d better go and eat some fish.”
With these words, he took the fish that Mashenka had prepared for her pets and ate it in one minute.
- Well, you have an appetite, just like commas in puzzles. As soon as such a comma appears near a picture, the letters immediately disappear in the word that the picture represents. There are as many commas as there are letters. Look at this.
And Masha drew several pictures for Chernysh so that everything would be clear to him.


-You see, there is a comma after the image of the table. This means that the letter “l” must be removed from the word “table”. What word will it be?
“It seems like a hundred,” Chernysh said cautiously.


-Well done!
-Oh, oh, I'm afraid! - Chernysh suddenly shouted, seeing a thunderstorm in the picture.


- Don’t be afraid, weirdo, you see the comma ahead. What will happen now?
-Rose? Cool! Can a thunderstorm really turn into a rose? - Chernysh jumped for joy.
-Well, of course!


- What if you need to remove several letters? – the kitten asked, narrowing his eyes slyly.
- To do this, you just need to put a few commas. Look,” and Mashenka showed Chernysh a new picture.


“I know, I know,” Chernysh jumped for joy, “hedgehogs will appear now!”
“Let’s check,” Mashenka said with a smile. And two funny hedgehogs appeared in the picture.


-Hooray!!! - Chernysh shouted, - I learned to solve puzzles!
He jumped with joy and turned over his head. And Murzik jumped after him. And at that very moment he found himself in the air upside down.
- Take your time! - Masha shouted, - look what can happen in puzzles with cats who behave like this. If the object in the rebus is turned upside down, its name is read from right to left.


-It's not fair! – someone’s ringing voice rang out, “why are the puzzles only about them?” I also want a puzzle to be written about me.
Barsik was peeking out of Grandma's favorite cup.
“Okay, okay,” Masha reassured him, “where are you now?”
“In a cup,” answered Barsik, and waved his paw to Masha.
- Here you are in a cup, and the letters can be in another letter. Look. The letter "LK" is located in the letter "O".


- Exactly, just like me! – the kitten was happy.
-What word did you get?


- Wolf? Why do we need a wolf? - Barsik was scared.
“Just so that you can learn to solve puzzles,” Masha reassured him, “you just need to remember that prepositions can also appear in the middle of a word, here you need to choose the right option.” For example, here the preposition is in the middle of the word.


- In these puzzles we used the preposition B. And you can also use other prepositions. For example, for example,” the girl began to look around, “Look at Vaska.” A butterfly landed on his tail. Letters can also sit on top of each other.


-Or they may be under a different letter, like Vaska the cat under a hat from Nikolai Nosov’s story.


“And also,” said Mashenka, “you can use the prepositions for, before, to, from, by, with, from.” You just need to not be lazy and look for the right option.







“That’s it, I’m completely confused in your puzzles,” Ryzhik sighed doomedly.
“You got tangled up in grandma’s threads,” Mashenka scolded him, “by the way, letters can also get tangled up and change places in a word using ordinal numbers.” Imagine that you came to visit me in a carriage. Try to find out how you will get away from me.


- On a rocket! “On a rocket,” the kittens shouted in unison.


-But do you want to make friends with such an animal? – Mashenka asked, showing a mole in the picture.
“Fi,” the kittens hissed, arching their backs.
- Then use another rebus rule rather, and cross out the letter from the middle of the word.


- Do you want me to treat you for your efforts? – the girl asked the kittens.
“We want, we want!” the kittens purred and began to rub against Machine’s legs.
- Get it! – Masha showed the squirrel to the kittens with a smile.
“Oh-oh,” the disappointed kittens sighed, “we don’t eat squirrels.” And they turned away from Masha offended.
“Well then, guess for yourself, with the help of which puzzle rule you can turn a squirrel into a delicious bun,” said Masha and went to the kitchen. And when she returned, in the picture and on Masha’s plate, instead of a squirrel, there were delicious buns.


- Well done, you guessed it! – Mashenka praised her smart students. She treated them to delicious buns. The kittens ate their fill and immediately fell asleep, and they dreamed of puzzles that they will always solve now together with their little teacher.

To learn to read and understand puzzles, it is worth understanding what they are. A rebus is an encrypted word, usually in pictures. Often, they contain letters, numbers and commas, which indicate that some letters in the word should be skipped.

Letter on letter

Sometimes in puzzles letters are drawn, placed in an unusual angle. For example, the picture shows a large letter O, and in it there are two small letters - LK. Here you should understand that you need to describe the drawing in words, mainly prepositions. That is, the letter O contains L and K. If we remove the unnecessary from this description, we get: v-O-LK. However, be careful. It may be the other way around. For example, a large letter A, in which three letters are depicted - DRO. In this case, you should first name the internal content of the letter, and then just name the letter A. It turns out like this: the letters DRO in A, that is: DRO-in-A.

Sometimes one letter is depicted above or on another. Then you also need to read the picture, using prepositions: on or under. For example, the letters are depicted in two levels, in the form of a fraction - in the “numerator” - OD, in the “denominator” - R. It should be read in -R-OD. Or in the “numerator” B, and below – AL. It should be read backwards: under-V-AL.

How to correctly solve letter puzzles? It happens that the letters move towards each other - then they use the preposition with, sometimes they hide, peeking out from behind each other - they use the prepositions for and before. For example, the letter A, with which NI slides, turns out to be s-A-NI. Or KO, followed by N, reads: for-KO-N.

There are other ways to show a letter as an object by using prepositions.

What can the numbers in the rebus mean?

How to solve puzzles with numbers? Sometimes there are numbers in puzzles. There may be several reading options here. Sometimes the number is pronounced according to its name. Indeed, in some words there are the syllables “three”, “two” or the number “one hundred” (pro-sto, ma-tri-tsa, ry-dva-n). The second option may mean that the letters in the word should be numbered and rearranged depending on the location of the numbers. Or take from this word only those letters whose numbers are indicated. Usually in this version, the numbers are written above or below the picture. For example, the picture shows a fox. Below it are written the numbers - 3, 2, 1, 4. The letters l-i-s-a should be rearranged in a different order: s-i-l-a.

Features of puzzles

  • Often in a rebus you can see commas drawn correctly or upside down, and several in a row at once. This is the difference between the rebus and other riddles. These commas are generally considered to be letters that should not be pronounced. For example, the picture shows a bullfinch, and three commas are drawn after it. This means that the last three letters of the word – ir – do not need to be pronounced. What remains is snow. If commas take away the initial letters, they are written in the usual way, if the last ones are written upside down.
  • How to solve puzzles with crossed out letters? If the letter above the picture is shown crossed out, it means that it needs to be excluded from the word.
  • If there are two letters above the image and an equal sign between them, then you need to replace one letter in the word with another.

Other symbols are also possible in puzzles: notes, Roman numerals, and even Latin alphabet. It all depends on the artist’s imagination and his horizons. Sometimes it is very interesting, even for an ordinary person, to decipher such puzzles. It is up to the reader to decide whether to solve them online or look for riddles in books. However, of course, experience in solving such riddles makes solving them much easier.

Game methods and techniques are aimed at increasing interest and positive emotions; they help to concentrate attention on the educational task, which becomes not imposed from the outside, but a desired, personal goal. Solving a learning task during a game involves less expenditure of nervous energy and minimal volitional efforts.

Any logical ingenuity task, no matter what age it is intended for, carries a certain mental load, which is most often disguised by an entertaining plot, external data, the conditions of the task, and so on.

What is a rebus?

A rebus is a riddle consisting of images of various objects (often interspersed with letters, numbers and musical notes), the names of which do not indicate the concepts expressed by the words to be solved, but are similar to them in pronunciation or consonance (without any relation to spelling).

Puzzles train memory, sharpen intelligence, develop perseverance, the ability to think logically, analyze and compare.

Rebus- a riddle in which the searched word or phrase is depicted by a combination of letter shapes or signs (Ozhegov S.)

The essence of a rebus is a riddle formulated in the form of a drawing (or photograph) in combination with letters, numbers, signs, symbols, and figures.

Solving a puzzle means “translating” everything it contains into letters that make up a meaningful word or sentence.

Rebus requirement

  1. A rebus must have a solution, and, as a rule, only one. The ambiguity of the answer should be specified in the conditions of the rebus. For example: “Find two solutions to this puzzle.”
  2. The guessed word or sentence must not contain spelling errors.
  3. If there is one word in the rebus, then it should, as a rule, be a noun, and in the singular and in the nominative case. Deviation from this rule must be specified in the conditions of the rebus (for example: “Guess the participle”).
  4. If a sentence is made (a proverb, an aphorism, etc.), then, naturally, it can contain not only nouns, but also verbs and other parts of speech. In this case, the terms of the rebus must contain the appropriate phrase (for example: “Guess the proverb”).
  5. The puzzle must be completed from left to right.
  6. When creating puzzles, always consider the target audience.

How to compose and solve educational puzzles

Simple rules:

  • a word or sentence is divided into parts that can be depicted in the form of a picture;
  • the names of all objects depicted in the picture should be read only in the nominative case;
  • if the object in the picture is upside down, its name is read from right to left;
  • If there are commas (one or more) to the left of the picture, then the first letters of the word are not readable. If commas are placed after the picture, to the right of it, the last letters are not readable;
  • if a crossed out letter is depicted above the picture, it must be excluded from the name of the item;
  • if there are numbers above the picture, the letters should be read in the indicated order;
  • if another letter is written next to a crossed out letter, it should be read instead of the crossed out one. Sometimes in this case an equal sign is placed between the letters;
  • if part of the word is pronounced as a numeral, in the rebus it is represented by numbers and numbers (O5 - again; 100G - haystack);
  • if the picture does not have any additional characters, only the first letter of the name of the depicted object should be taken into account;
  • Many parts of encrypted words are indicated by the corresponding arrangement of letters and pictures. Words that contain the combination of letters on, under, over, for, can be represented by placing letters or objects one above the other or behind the other. The letters C and B can become prepositions. If a letter is made up of other letters, the preposition from is used when reading.

When can you use puzzles in teaching?

  1. At the stage of fixing the material. At the same time, students do not simply reproduce knowledge in the form in which it was learned, but transform, transform it, and learn to operate with it depending on the game situation.
  2. At the stage of students’ independent work. Organization of active independent search, finding and use of scientific information.
  3. At the stage of switching and activating attention (introduction, explanation, consolidation, exercise, control).

The rebus method is used:

In teaching reading to preschoolers - the Rebus method of Lev Sternberg,

In adult education - puzzles in Anatomy for first-year students as an additional means of testing knowledge in certain sections of the discipline “Human Anatomy and Physiology” or in Economics, as a stage in students’ project activities.

Today there is even a puzzle generator:


Fig.1. Puzzle generator

Answer: Communion.

More puzzles created using the generator:


Answer: verb

Answer: Battle of Moscow


Answer: Oxymoron

Examples of puzzles on the History of the Fatherland (author R. Kitaev).

Answer: Aurora

Answer: Chinese Wall

Answer: Victory Day

Answer: Serfdom

Answer: Tsar Cannon

Answer: Napoleon

Rebus is a logic game in which you have to guess the answer from a picture. The latter depicts objects, animals and plants, letters and numbers. Their relative position matters. Even for fidgets, puzzles can be a fun activity if presented in a playful way. For example, you can offer to teach your child how to solve spy codes.

And from the simplest picture puzzles for preschool age to relatively complex ones. We assure you: if your child gets carried away and learns to use logical thinking, over time you will learn from him how to solve riddles in pictures.

Puzzles have been invented on a huge variety of topics. The main thing is that every word, letter and object that serves as an answer to the picture is already familiar to the baby.

How to solve puzzles for children with letters in pictures?

If you are interested in puzzles, then most likely you know the benefits of these logic puzzles. They develop memory, intelligence, speed of thinking, the ability to navigate a situation and apply the knowledge already acquired.

To teach a 6-7 year old child how to solve problems correctly, first explain to him the rules. There is no need to insist that he remember everything at once. Most likely, you don’t know them all yourself. It’s better to explain one or two things a day and support them with thematic tasks. The latter can be printed (more convenient for outdoor activities) or shown from the monitor. In subsequent classes, it is also better not to offer too much material. It is important to explain to the child that first he needs to correctly identify and name the object shown in the picture. And only then apply the rules in relation to this word.

So, let's read the basic rules! In particular, we will determine what a comma, a strikethrough, an inverted object and other subtleties mean in pictures.

  • What does a comma mean at the beginning or end of a rebus?
    A comma at the bottom or at the top before the picture means that one letter at the beginning must be dropped from the name of the depicted object. Accordingly, we see two commas - we discard the first two letters. These icons are very common.
  • What does an inverted comma at the beginning or end mean?
    The rules for inverted commas are similar to the rules for regular commas (see previous paragraph).
  • What do the crossed out and added letters mean?
    A crossed out letter in the picture means that it needs to be excluded from the name of the drawn object (and another one must be added, if indicated). Added to the left or right of the picture - you need to add it to the word at the beginning and at the end.
  • What do the numbers in the puzzles mean?
    Numbers can have two meanings. Do they stand above the word? To guess the answer, you need to rearrange the letters from place to place in the indicated order. The name of a number can be part of a word (often “one hundred”, “five” are used). A crossed out number means that the letter with that serial number must be excluded from the word. It should be remembered that some numbers, as well as objects, can have several names (unit - “count”, “one”, “one”).
  • What does the plus sign and the equal sign mean?
    If there is a plus sign between words (symbols), then they need to be added to each other. Sometimes “+” means the preposition “to”; the necessary one is chosen according to the meaning. The equal sign (for example, A=K) indicates that all the letters “A” in the word should be replaced with the letters “K”.
  • Vertical or horizontal line in tasks?
    A horizontal line means “under”, “over”, “above” and “on” at the same time, depending on the context. Used with letters or pictures, when one part is drawn below the line, the other above. Sometimes denotes a fraction (half of something, that is, “half-”).
  • Arrangement of letters in the picture and prepositions
    It is important to look at the relative position of the letters. If they are placed one inside the other, then the preposition “in” is added to their names. One letter is drawn after another - meaning the preposition “behind” or “before”.
  • The object in the picture is drawn upside down? To get the answer, you need to read the word backwards. Children 6-7 years old can easily turn short words in their minds. True, the number of such tasks is quite limited.

Most often, puzzles use several rules simultaneously. It is believed that at the age of 6-7 years, children are already familiar with letters and clearly know their names. If a younger student has not yet encountered commas, teaching him a new symbol will not be particularly difficult.

Examples of puzzles in pictures for children 6-7 years old with answers

Children 6-7 years old and younger perceive material much better in connection with some memorable event. Puzzles about animals will be solved with delight if you offer them to your child the next day after visiting the zoo. A first-grader girl who is eager to enroll in a music school will be interested in musical puzzles. And a child, a boy impressed by the planetarium, will like pictures about space.

About animals and birds

When giving children a task about birds or animals, make sure that they have already encountered such animal names and also understand everything that is shown in the picture.

Puzzles about family, about mother

Who is the sweetest for a child, if not mommy! And who does he happily meet every time, except mom and dad? Children will really enjoy recognizing and guessing their grandparents, sisters and other relatives in the encrypted pictures. Print or draw brighter pictures and start having fun while teaching your child at the same time!

About sports, about health

Puzzles about work, health, sports, professions and many others can be used as thematic game aids. Is there a lesson or conversation planned on one of the topics in the graduating group of kindergarten, first grade of school or at home? A riddle in the form of a picture will allow you to learn the material better than an ordinary faceless story. Kids will be interested in the non-standard presentation of the material.

Puzzles based on fairy tales

Fairy tales with familiar characters, modern or classic cartoons are an inexhaustible source of inspiration. If your child is not very interested in logical riddles, you can try to get him interested in guessing his favorite characters. There are many more mysteries on this topic than are given as an example. Knowing your child’s interests and favorite fairy tales, you can create puzzles in the form of applications yourself.

Date: 12/19/2015 how to solve puzzles

These are the basic rules that will help you learn to solve puzzles. They are shown in the following short cartoon, and are also discussed in more detail below in the text.

Examples of puzzles enlarge when clicked.

1. A picture, geometric figure, number or musical note means that to solve the puzzle you need to read the name of what is depicted. For example, the number “100” together with the letter “L” turns into “TABLE”, the note “SI” with the addition of the syllable “LA” gives us the word “POWER”, and the figure “ROHMBUS” with the last letter taken away and the letter “G” standing in front " becomes the word "thunder":

How to solve puzzles. The rebus reads as: HUNDRED + L. It can be solved as TABLE. Rebus-1


How to solve puzzles. The rebus is read as SI (note) + LA. You can solve it like POWER. Rebus-2


How to solve puzzles. The rebus is read as G + ROM (a rhombus shape without the last letter). You can solve it like THUNDER. Rebus-3

2. A comma means that you need to remove the last letter (at the beginning or at the end) from the picture next to which there is a comma. Two commas mean removing two letters. The direction of the tail of the comma points towards the picture from which the letter must be subtracted. Puzzles containing an element with a large number of commas are undesirable, since they smear the meaning of the element used. Below is an example where the word “FENCE” with the first two letters taken away is solved as “BOR” - coniferous forest:

How to solve puzzles. Rule-2. Rebus-4

3. A crossed out letter or number above the picture means that to solve this word, this letter or the letter with the indicated number is removed from this word, and in some cases replaced with another letter. For example, the word “WHALE” turns into the word “CAT”, “TABLE” turns into “CHAIR”:

How to solve puzzles. Rule-3. Rebus-5


How to solve puzzles. Rule-3. Rebus-6

4. Letters, numbers or pictures can be in each other, one on top of the other, hide behind the other, consist of one another, then “B”, “ON”, “FOR”, “FROM” are added to the puzzle solution. For example, the letter “O”, which contains the letters “YES”, turns into the word “WATER”, the letters “KA” standing on the letter “U” turn into the word “science”, the letter “C” standing behind the letter “ I" can be solved as the word "HARE", and the large letter "A", consisting of small letters "B" must be solved as the word "HUT":

How to solve puzzles. Rule-4. Rebus-7


How to solve puzzles. Rule-4. Rebus-8


How to solve puzzles. Rule-4. Rebus-9


How to solve puzzles. Rule-4. Rebus-10

It is necessary to say separately about puzzles in which the fragments “ON” and “ABOVE” appear in solving them, as well as about puzzles in which there is variability “ABOVE” - “UNDER” and “FRONT” - “FOR”. In the example you can see that the letters “ZhDA” standing on the letters “DE” are solved as “HOPE”. The same solution is obtained when "WAIT" hangs above the letter "E". The mirror version in the case of letters “hanging” one above the other may imply the position “UNDER”, as in the “BASEMENT” rebus. Similarly, a mirror solution is available in the case of placing some letters after others, then the rebus can be solved by varying the substitutions “FOR” and “BEFORE”, as in the “ALTERATION” rebus.

How to solve puzzles. Rule-4. Rebus-18


How to solve puzzles. Rule-4. Rebus-19


How to solve puzzles. Rule-4. Rebus-20


How to solve puzzles. Rule-4. Rebus-21

5. Several identical letters in a row when solving means adding a numeral forward - according to the number of these letters. For example, the seven letters “I” mean “FAMILY”:

How to solve puzzles. Rule-5. Rebus-11

6. An inverted picture or part of a word means that the puzzle must be solved by reading the word backwards. For example, an upside-down picture of a cat turns into the word “TOK”:

How to solve puzzles. Rule-6. Rebus-12

7. Inserting in the form of a “tick” means that you need to insert an additional letter into the word that the “tick” is directed to. For example, if there is this sign above the number “2”, and with the numbers “1” and “2” on the sides, then you need to insert the indicated letter into the word “TWO” - in our case “I” - between the first and second letters. And since after the two there is also the letter “N”, the whole puzzle can be solved as “SOFA”:

How to solve puzzles. Rule-7. Rebus-13

The above rules are basic, in addition to them there are some “fuzzy” additional rules: multiple selection of letters from the name of an element (when multiple numbers are indicated above the element); pointing with an arrow to a fragment of an element; unclear mutual arrangement of elements (playing on the prepositions “U”, “C”, “OT”, “PO”).
But these additional rules blur the meaning of the rebus puzzle, turning it into a multiple choice problem. If these rules are sometimes used in puzzles for older children, their use in puzzles for children is undesirable, because children first of all need to master the solution algorithms themselves, and this should be done based on clear rules.
Below are examples of “fuzzy” puzzles:

How to solve puzzles. Fuzzy rule. Rebus-14


How to solve puzzles. Fuzzy rule. Rebus-15


How to solve puzzles. Fuzzy rule. Rebus-16


How to solve puzzles. Fuzzy rule. Rebus-17

Also, sometimes puzzles use the technique of nesting, indicated by parentheses. In this case, the rebus consists of other rebuses nested within it. This technique is sometimes used in puzzles for older children. For children, such puzzles are undesirable, since children should first be given basic solving algorithms. An example of such a puzzle is in the figure below:

How to solve puzzles. Reception of nesting. Rebus-22

Puzzles (including and along with other tasks), when used correctly, are an effective tool for teaching children. By offering your child puzzles of the appropriate class, you can purposefully develop the “hardware” of the brain, consistently teaching him problem-solving algorithms and speculative design skills.
Text and illustrations: A. Fokin.