Any topic, any week
Science vocabulary, a book’s characters, states and capitals, Japanese or Indonesian words: if you can list it, you can turn it into a word search.More puzzles
See the crossword maker and bingo cards. For pre-readers, picture puzzles have a picture beside every word.In the Australian Curriculum
- FoundationReading high-frequency and familiar words (AC9EFLY14), and building vocabulary from topics taught at school (AC9EFLA08).
- Years 3–6Learning the topic words of other learning areas, such as Science and HASS, alongside spelling longer words.
Word searches aren’t in the curriculum, so use them for what they do well: making children look closely at the letter order of words they already know. Spelling words that share a pattern, or key terms from a Science or HASS unit, make better lists than random words.
From Year 3, ask children to write each word after they find it and tick it off. That turns the puzzle into spelling practice as well as a hunt.
Summarised in our own words from the Australian Curriculum: English, Version 9.0 (ACARA).
