Word Puzzles for Children About Holidays

Word Search Puzzles

• Word search puzzles are squares of seemingly random letters in which words are embedded going up, down, across and diagonally. After a lesson or discussion, pass out the word search puzzle and offer a prize to the child who comes up with the most words. A variant on this tells the children how many words there are hidden in the puzzle and offers the prize to whoever finds them all first. Because of the nature of this type of puzzle, the creator is sometimes surprised to discover extra words she did not consciously put there.

Word Jumbles

• In a word jumble, the letters of the word are rearranged. There is a list of words, each of which have their letters jumbled in a random sequence. Have the children rearrange the letters in each until they discover the word that those letters spell when properly arranged. This also allows for prizes for children who are quickest to find all the words.

Themed Scrabble

• This is most suitable for a small group of children. It is usually best as they start to reach junior high school. Have a Scrabble board, but with the proviso that each word used must be related to the holiday. Because of the limitations, it is best to allow the children to select a larger number of letters than usual and to have a referee who will decide on the relevance of each word. For example, the colors green or red are obviously related to Christmas, gold and silver are borderline, while brown and orange are clearly not. Score in the regular manner.

Crossword Puzzles

• Unless they are very simple, crossword puzzles are best used with older groups of children. The benefit of them is that they are best in teaching children to make larger connections when clues are cleverly designed. Crossword puzzles are more complex than we often think. The clues, which can be in puns or other variants, teach children to think a little beyond just what is literal and can help expand creative thinking.

Poems

• Themed poems are a rich mine for reinforcing what has been learned and sparking creative thinking. Set, for example, a word such as "independence." Have the children write a poem in which each line must begin with the next sequential letter in the word. Let the class then comment on each others poems. Much can be done with the device of poems. One could make a poem that, visually, is a flag. Use a short word describing the country for each of the stars. Use a descriptive line for each of the stripes. Use different colored pens, crayons or markers to make different colors. Some will come up with tremendously creative efforts, and all will learn much more about the holiday.