Any topic, any week
Science vocabulary, a book’s characters, the regions of Aotearoa, te reo Māori 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 NZ classrooms
- Year 1Spelling simple words by their sounds, and some tricky words such as was, of and said.
- Year 2Words with the endings -s, -ed and -ing.
- Year 3Reading and spelling longer words of two or more syllables, including less common spellings.
Word searches don’t appear in the curriculum, but finding a word letter by letter makes children look at its exact spelling. Use this week’s phonics pattern or spelling list so the puzzle repeats what was taught.
Topic words from science, social sciences or a class trip work well for older children. Ask them to sort the words they find by number of syllables, which matches the Year 3 focus on longer words.
Summarised in our own words from the New Zealand Curriculum: English, Years 0–6 (2025), and the Ministry of Education’s year-by-year guide for parents and whānau.
