Word searches for teachers: printing for a whole class
Most of what this site does for a classroom is tucked under the grid of each puzzle, on a card most visitors scroll straight past. This page puts it in one place: the monthly print pack, printing a whole class set in one go, answer keys, choosing a level, making a puzzle from this week's vocabulary, and a printable that arrives by email every Monday. None of it needs an account, and you never need one to print or play.
The monthly print pack
The print pack is a month of word searches laid out week by week. Each week has a theme that suits the time of year, and under each theme sits a puzzle at up to three levels — easy, medium and hard — so one week's sheet can go to a whole room working at different paces. Every puzzle in the pack links to its own answer key.
Each month is published before it begins, so next month's sheets are there while you are still planning. Past months stay up at their own addresses, which makes it easy to reuse a theme next year or to find the sheet a colleague mentioned. The pack is a page, not a download: open the week you want, open the puzzle, and print it from the card under the grid.
Printing a class set
Every puzzle page can print a full class set as a single print job: as many copies of the puzzle as you need, followed by one answer key at the end of the stack, so the key never gets handed out with the sheets by mistake.
- Open the puzzle and scroll past the grid to the card headed “Print this puzzle”.
- Type the number of copies you need into the Copies box — anything from 1 to 40.
- Press Print a class set. The browser's print window opens with every copy and the key already in order; check the page count, then print.
The number you type is remembered on that computer, so next week the box already holds your class size. Because it is one job rather than forty, a shared printer will not interleave somebody else's pages in the middle of your set.
Answer keys
Every puzzle has its own answer key, and it is a page rather than a file. The same card under the grid offers three ways to use it. Print puzzle with answer key sends the puzzle and its key to the printer together, as two sheets. Open the answer key page shows the solved grid on screen, with every word marked where it lies and a list giving the row, column and direction of each one — useful at the front of the room, or for settling which word nobody could find. And the key page has a print button of its own, for a marker who needs the key alone.
The answer keys page explains the format in more detail, and every key in the print pack is one click from its puzzle.
Choosing a level
Levels on this site are rated from how a puzzle was built, not guessed from its size. The biggest difference is direction. Every puzzle in the easy collection reads forwards — left to right or top to bottom — on a small grid, which suits a beginning reader or a short slot at the end of a lesson. Medium puzzles are larger and let words run in more directions. Hard puzzles are the biggest, with words running all eight ways — backwards and diagonally included — and more of them to find; they will keep a strong group busy for a good while.
For anyone who finds small print hard going, Large Print is a switch rather than a separate set of puzzles: the Abc switch in the site header turns every page over to bigger type. The large print collection gathers the puzzles that stay comfortable at that size. On paper the size is already settled: the printed sheet is the same whatever the screen is set to.
A puzzle from this week's vocabulary
When the word list you want is the one on the board, the puzzle maker builds it. Type or paste the words, choose a size and which directions the words may run, and the puzzle redraws as you go. Press “Play this puzzle” to see it as a solver will, then print it from there.
The maker gives every puzzle a share link. The puzzle is held in the link itself, so nothing is stored on our side and the link does not expire — post it to a class page, or keep it to print the same puzzle again next term. For the full method, from picking words to setting the difficulty, see how to make a word search.
A printable by email every Monday
If you would rather the sheet came to you, the puzzle list sends one by email. Choose a level and whether you want it every day or once a week; the weekly email arrives on Monday and, in a month that has a print pack, it carries that week's sheet. Each email has a link to play the puzzle and a link to print it, never the answers.
Every email also carries a preferences link that changes the level, switches between daily and weekly, pauses the list or stops it, without signing in. You can sign up from the print card on any puzzle, from the foot of each print pack month, or from today's puzzle.
Printing tips
- Nothing to download. Every puzzle prints straight from the browser, and the page lays itself out for paper — title, grid, word list — with the site's navigation left off.
- Letter or A4. Both paper sizes fit a puzzle on one sheet. Set the paper size in the print window to match the paper in the tray.
- Leave the print settings alone. The sheet is designed for the browser's default settings, including “Background graphics” left unticked; there is no need to change margins or scaling.
- Check the count before printing a set. The print window's page count should be the number of copies plus one, for the key.
Ways a word search fits a lesson
A word search is at its most useful when the words are ones the class is already working with. A science unit's vocabulary, this week's spelling list or the names from a novel all make a good grid, and saying each word aloud and asking what it means as it is found turns a quiet activity into practice with meaning. Our guide on how word searches help kids learn sets out what the format does and does not do, and how to get more from it.
They also earn a place as early-finisher work, a calm start after a busy break, a page in a substitute's folder that needs no explanation, and the sheet on an activity table that anyone can pick up. The printable collection and the word searches for kids page are good places to find a topic that fits, and the print pack covers a whole month if you would rather not choose at all.