Word searchesFall
Fall word search
An autumn word search drawing on 32 words such as ACORN, CIDER, HAYRIDE and CARAMELAPPLE. It suits October classrooms, orchard visits and anyone who wants a quiet seasonal activity.
- Type your details or print blank
- Answer key on its own page
- Print or PDF, Letter or A4
- Free, no sign-up
On this page
Autumn vocabulary is concrete: you can rake it, pick it, bake it or step on it. That makes it good material for a word hunt. This page opens on the Fall theme at Medium, and the New puzzle button rebuilds it each time you press it.
What prints
The title line reads "Fall Word Search". An instruction line follows, saying how many words are hidden and which directions they use. The letter grid is in a box, with the words listed in columns underneath and an empty tick square beside each. The second printed page is the answer key, with each word outlined, bold and the rest grey.
What is in the word list
It holds 32 words and the autumn calendar is part of it: SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER and NOVEMBER. Nature words include LEAF, OAK, ACORN, FOG, WIND, SQUIRREL, CHESTNUT and MIGRATION. Farm words include HAY, GOURD, CORN, HARVEST, ORCHARD and CORNFIELD. Seasonal activities include RAKE, CIDER, BONFIRE, HAYRIDE, FOOTBALL, SWEATER and APPLEPICKING. Longer entries like CARAMELAPPLE and FALLFOLIAGE are written as one string.
The settings
- Title (optional): give it a name like "Orchard Trip Puzzle".
- Theme: pre-set to Fall; choose a different subject or a typed list from the same menu.
- Difficulty: Easy is 10 × 10 across and down with 10 words; Medium is 14 × 14 plus diagonals with 16 words; Hard is 17 × 17 in every direction, backwards too, with 22 words.
- Large print: 12 × 12 at most, 12 words at most, bigger letters.
- Lowercase letters: lowercase option for the letters.
Ways to build a lesson or outing around it
Take a Medium puzzle to the orchard and have children hunt for the real items: an apple, a gourd, a bale of hay. Back in class, sort the words by type, such as plants, food, weather and activities, and add two more words to each group. A teacher with an upper elementary class can ask for a short paragraph that uses five found words correctly.
Because the list includes three months, the sheet also works as a calendar warm-up: put the months in order after finding them.
Worked example: a homeschool morning in October
Priya teaches two children, aged seven and eleven. She prints an Easy sheet for the younger one and a Hard sheet for the older one, both on the Fall theme with the title "Autumn Study Hour". The Easy page has ten short words, so the seven-year-old finds LEAF, RAKE, OAK, HAY and FOG quickly.
The older child has 22 words in a 17 × 17 grid, and several run backwards. He reaches for the answer key after twenty minutes with four words left. Priya asks him to look at the key, find just one missing word, then close it and search for the next on his own. At the end, both children sort the found words into "things we saw on our walk" and "things we have not seen yet," and the younger one draws a picture of the acorn.
Other seasons and themes
The Thanksgiving word search overlaps with a few harvest words, while the winter word search comes next in the calendar. Use the word search maker to build a list of the trees on your own street.