Back to school Criss-Cross
- ASSEMBLY
- CAFETERIA
- CLASSROOM
- ERASER
- LESSON
- LIBRARY
- LUNCHBOX
- PENCIL
- PROJECT
- RECESS
- SHARPENER
- SPELLING
Created for free at puzzleandprint.com
Back to school criss-cross puzzle
Interlock your own list, or take one of four ready-made first-week grids.
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Back to school Criss-Cross, Answer Key
- ASSEMBLY
- CAFETERIA
- CLASSROOM
- ERASER
- LESSON
- LIBRARY
- LUNCHBOX
- PENCIL
- PROJECT
- RECESS
- SHARPENER
- SPELLING
Created for free at puzzleandprint.com
Or take one that is already made
Four grids from ten words to twenty. Every one is a two-page PDF, the puzzle, then the answer key on its own page.
Back to school criss-cross puzzle, starter10 words · small gridDownload PDF ↓
Back to school criss-cross puzzle, everyday14 words · medium gridDownload PDF ↓
Back to school criss-cross puzzle, bigger grid18 words · large gridDownload PDF ↓
Back to school criss-cross puzzle, challenge20 words · full pageDownload PDF ↓Every sheet here is free to print as often as you like. If one saved you time, the tip jar is on Ko-fi.
The first week needs activities that occupy a class you do not know yet. A criss-cross is close to ideal for it: the instructions are one sentence, nobody needs to have read anything over the summer, and it can be done silently at a desk while you take attendance and work through the forms and everything else the first morning consists of.
It also tells you something. Watching who finishes the fourteen-word grid, who fixes their own spelling when a word will not fit, and who has stopped after three words is a more honest first read on a class than any of the printed information you have been handed about them, and it takes no grading to collect.
The vocabulary is the room and the routine, PENCIL, LIBRARY, LOCKER, and that is deliberate. These are words the class will read on signs and worksheets every day for a year, and most of them will never be formally taught. Spelling them into a grid once in September is a cheap way of making sure they are recognized in October.
If your school has its own words, the maker on this page takes a pasted list of four to twenty words, each three letters or more, and interlocks it in a few seconds. The subjects on the schedule, the names of the rooms, or the first names of a reading group are the versions no ready-made sheet can give you.
Which back to school criss-cross words are compound words
Four of the ten words on the back to school criss-cross starter are compound words, BACKPACK, NOTEBOOK, LUNCHBOX and CLASSROOM, and the larger sheets add HOMEWORK, PLAYGROUND and WHITEBOARD. Each is two short words joined without a space, which turns a long spelling into two short ones a class has usually met already. CLASSROOM is the only nine-letter word on the starter and crosses LUNCHBOX, BACKPACK and SCISSORS, so it is the word to place first, and of the four eight-letter words on that sheet, three are compounds too.
Once a grid is finished, draw a line through each compound at the join: back and pack, note and book, lunch and box, class and room. CLASSROOM rewards a closer look, because its double S belongs to class and its double O to room, so the word carries two doubled pairs without either being a spelling trick. BACKPACK repeats its CK in both halves. PLAYGROUND, at ten letters the longest word on the everyday sheet and the challenge, splits into play and ground, and on the challenge it is crossed by SHARPENER at the R and LUNCHBOX at the N, both in the ground half.
Where the letters cross on the back to school criss-cross challenge
On the back to school challenge, nine of the nineteen crossings are on R or S, R five times and S four, which is no surprise on a sheet with SCISSORS, RECESS, SHARPENER and STAPLER on it. PLAYGROUND, the only ten-letter word, and SHARPENER, the only nine, are the two to place first. SHARPENER then crosses four words: RECESS at an S, PLAYGROUND and SCISSORS at its two Rs, and SPELLING at the N. SCISSORS crosses three, and two of those meetings, with SUBJECT and STAPLER, are on an S. The everyday sheet shows the same pattern on a smaller scale, with S and R between them accounting for six of its fourteen crossings.
Four letters on the challenge belong to a single word each: the X in LUNCHBOX, the J in SUBJECT, the W in HOMEWORK and the F in FOLDER. None of them can be a crossing, so those words are placed by their other letters. SUBJECT is the clearest case: it joins the grid through SCISSORS at its S and BINDER at its B, and the J, one square below the B, sits on its own. BUS, the only three-letter word on the sheet, runs down to end on the S that starts SPELLING. With the grid finished, the doubled pairs make a short spelling list of their own: the SS in SCISSORS and RECESS, and the LL in SPELLING.
Common questions
Why use this in the first week specifically?
The words are the ones a class needs from the first day rather than ones it will be taught later. The ten-word starter is the classroom and what sits in it, from TEACHER and DESK to GLUE and SCISSORS, and the fourteen-word everyday sheet is the shape of the school day, READING, SPELLING, HOMEWORK, RECESS and LOCKER, so nothing on either sheet depends on a lesson the class has not had yet.
Is there any point beyond keeping them busy?
Yes, the challenge sheet doubles as a check on the starter and everyday sheets, because it reuses six of the ten starter words and twelve of the fourteen everyday words. A child who has done both meets only CHALK and LIBRARY as new spellings, so how quickly they finish the challenge shows what stuck.
Does the back to school criss-cross use American or British school words?
Mostly words a class on either side of the Atlantic would use, with a few American ones: ERASER, RECESS, CAFETERIA, SCHEDULE and PRINCIPAL, where a British class is more likely to say rubber, break, dining hall, timetable and head teacher. If those would puzzle your class, the maker on this page takes a pasted list, so the British words can go in instead.
Want to know when new printables go up?
New printables when they go up, mostly seasonal, a few times a year.