Winter Holiday Word Search

For the week nobody can concentrate

The last few days before the winter break are a known quantity: rehearsals, parties, early finishes, and a class that has mentally left already. A word search is the activity for that week because it is self-contained, it is quiet for twenty minutes, and it can be picked up and put down between interruptions. It also works as the "while we wait" task when half the class is at a rehearsal.

The list was written for a mixed classroom. It is mostly winter and general festive words, and it includes menorah, dreidel and Kwanzaa alongside gingerbread and garland so that every child finds something from home in it. There is nothing religious on the list. If your class is all one tradition, change it; the puzzle rebuilds instantly.

Difficulty as set

Words run forwards, downwards and on both diagonals, which is the medium setting, and several of the words are nine to eleven letters long, which makes them easy to spot once you know the first three letters and hard before. The 15 x 15 grid gives enough filler that the long words don't stand out as obvious lines. Expect ten to fifteen minutes for a third-grader, five for a sixth-grader; add backwards and upwards directions for the sixth-grader.

Ways to use it

• Party activity. Put a puzzle at each place before the class party starts; it settles the room while the food is set out.
• Vocabulary and writing. Each found word goes into a sentence, or three of them into a short winter paragraph.
• Sub plan. Leave a class set and the answer key for a substitute teacher. It requires no explanation.
• Family evening. Print a few for the kitchen table on the first day of the holidays, when everyone is home and nobody has a plan.

Printing

One puzzle per page with the word bank underneath, answer key on page two. Plain white paper prints the clearest grid; pale blue works if you want it to look wintry. Print the answer key once and keep it with the class set. If students will colour the found words, ask for coloured pencils rather than markers, which bleed through the grid lines.

The 18 words in this puzzle

The grid is 15 x 15. Edit the words, the grid size or the allowed directions above and the puzzle is rebuilt as you type.

• December
• Gingerbread
• Mittens
• Snowball
• Sled
• Icicle
• Cocoa
• Garland
• Peppermint
• Pinecone
• Menorah
• Dreidel
• Kwanzaa
• Twinkle
• Evergreen
• Blizzard
• Earmuffs
• Scarf