How to Build a Free Word Find Game
If you're looking for fun ways to enhance classroom lessons or simple games for a baby shower, you can keep your students or guests entertained with word find games. These games, also known as word search puzzles, consist of several words placed in various directions within a grid. Solving the puzzle involves finding and circling each word in the grid. You'll usually see a list of all the words below the puzzle. You can create these puzzles online for free on several different websites.
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Instructions
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Visit a website that allows you to create a word search puzzle for free, such as DiscoveryEducation.com, EdCreate.com or ArmoredPenguin.com. Read the site's terms of use or licensing and copyright information. The site might only let you print puzzles for classroom use. Other sites might allow you to post the puzzle on your own website.
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Choose a theme for your puzzle. Think of fun themes for family gatherings or children's parties, such as movie titles or cartoon characters. Use educational themes, such as historical events or scientific terms, for classroom puzzles. Include the names of baby items for baby shower puzzles. You can also use themes containing object names or phrases related to a particular holiday or season.
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Enter a title for your puzzle. Choose the number of letters you want going down and across. Select the directions the words will appear in, such as down, reverse and diagonal. Indicate whether you want letters in different words to overlap, which can make the puzzle more challenging. Type the words or phrases you want included in your puzzle. Click Create or Enter.
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Look the puzzle over to make sure you're satisfied with how it looks. Print out your puzzle. Most websites create a printer-friendly HTML or PDF version of it. You'll need to have Adobe Reader to open and print a PDF file. If your puzzle is for online use, save it on the website or post it on your own website if allowed.
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Tips & Warnings
Some sites will only let you build a very basic puzzle for free. These sites require a paid subscription to create more complex puzzles.
Your words don't have to fill up all the available puzzle spaces. The computer will automatically fill in any leftover spaces with random letters. If there aren't enough spaces, some words won't be included.
Most sites will include a list of the words in your puzzle. If you see an option to "hide" words, select it if you don't want a word list to appear with your puzzle. Players will have to guess what the words are by looking at the title and letters in the puzzle.
Although some sites use a word filter to prevent offensive words from being randomly generated by the computer, you should still check your puzzle before saving or printing to make sure that none appear. Use the "regenerate" option or refresh your browser to get a different arrangement.
