100% free · no signupTip jar, opens Ko-fi in a new tab

Space criss-cross puzzle

Interlock your own list, or take one of four ready-made space grids.

Last updated

Save this to Pinterest

Your worksheet

Where the words come from
36 themes, grouped by kind.
4 to 20 from this theme
Border
Answer key
Raise this to put a different one on every page.
Up to 40 characters, printed on the sheet and its answer key. Leave it empty for the title shown.
Your criss-cross

Space Criss-Cross

  • CAPSULE
  • EARTH
  • METEOR
  • NEBULA
  • PLANET
  • PLUTO
  • PULSAR
  • SHUTTLE
  • SOLAR
  • SUN
  • TELESCOPE
  • VENUS

Created for free at puzzleandprint.com

Space Criss-Cross, Answer Key

  • CAPSULE
  • EARTH
  • METEOR
  • NEBULA
  • PLANET
  • PLUTO
  • PULSAR
  • SHUTTLE
  • SOLAR
  • SUN
  • TELESCOPE
  • VENUS

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.

Space criss-cross puzzle printable, starter: 10 words, small gridSpace criss-cross puzzle, starter10 words · small gridDownload PDF ↓Space criss-cross puzzle printable, everyday: 14 words, medium gridSpace criss-cross puzzle, everyday14 words · medium gridDownload PDF ↓Space criss-cross puzzle printable, bigger grid: 18 words, large gridSpace criss-cross puzzle, bigger grid18 words · large gridDownload PDF ↓Space criss-cross puzzle printable, challenge: 20 words, full pageSpace 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.

Space vocabulary gives a criss-cross plenty to cross on. The list has four nine-letter words, ASTRONAUT, TELESCOPE, ANDROMEDA and SUPERNOVA, and on two sheets one of them is the most crossed word in the grid: on the starter ASTRONAUT carries four of the nine crossings, and on the bigger grid ANDROMEDA carries four of the eighteen. The challenge ends up with 21 crossings for its 20 words.

They are also words children meet far more often than they write. A ten-year-old has heard GRAVITY hundreds of times and may never have spelled it out. Putting it into seven squares on the challenge, with the R fixed because CRATER already crosses there, is frequently the first time the spelling has had to be exactly right rather than roughly right.

That makes this a good review sheet at the end of a topic rather than an introduction to one. The words should be familiar before the puzzle, because a criss-cross gives no clues and no context: the word bank is the whole of the help available. Handed out cold to a class that has not done the topic, it becomes a copying exercise.

The four grids go from ten words to twenty, and two of them, the starter and the challenge, use planet names, which have a useful property: a child who knows the order of the planets can work through them mentally and check each length against the gaps, which is a completely different solving strategy from letter-matching.

Why galaxy and gravity are the awkward words on the space criss-cross

GALAXY on the starter and GRAVITY on the everyday sheet are the awkward words on the space criss-cross: several of their letters appear in no other word on their sheet, and in the printed grids each has a single crossing. On the starter, GALAXY carries a G, an L, an X and a Y that no other starter word contains, and it is held only by the A it shares with ASTRONAUT. On the everyday sheet GRAVITY is in the same position: its G, V and Y are unique to it, and it joins the grid only where its A meets ASTEROID. Both are words to leave until last, when only one run of the right length is still empty.

On the challenge the same GRAVITY is the opposite case. It crosses CRATER at the R, ECLIPSE at the I and ASTEROID at the A, and becomes one of the most firmly pinned words on the page. JUPITER is similar: its J appears nowhere else on the challenge, but it still crosses TELESCOPE, SHUTTLE and MERCURY. On the bigger grid the Q belongs to QUASAR alone, and QUASAR meets PLANET at its first A and SUPERNOVA at its second, so the Q itself is never crossed. Comparing GRAVITY on the two sheets shows a class that where a word goes in a criss-cross depends on its neighbors as much as on its own letters.

Using a finished space criss-cross to put the planets in order

The space criss-cross challenge is the sheet for a planet-order exercise, because it holds all eight planets, MERCURY, VENUS, EARTH, MARS, JUPITER, SATURN, URANUS and NEPTUNE, along with PLUTO, which was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. Once the grid is solved, ask for the eight to be written in order from the sun, using the grid as the spelling reference, and then for PLUTO to be added beyond NEPTUNE with its own label. The starter has six of the eight and is missing MERCURY and URANUS, which makes a good question in its own right. The bigger grid has no planet names at all, only the word PLANET.

The finished grids also hold a spelling pattern worth sorting. SOLAR and LUNAR, both on the bigger grid, end with the same sound as CRATER and LANDER, which sit on the everyday sheet and the challenge, yet one pair is spelled AR and the other ER, so the ending has to be known rather than heard. The bigger grid checks it hard: both letters of the ending in LUNAR sit on crossings, with AIRLOCK through the A and ROVER through the R, so luner will not fit. On the challenge, METEOR and LANDER finish on the same square and share their final R, which adds a third spelling, OR, to the same sort. Three columns headed AR, ER and OR, filled from the answer grids, make a five-minute follow-up.

Common questions

Why do space words make better grids than most themes?

Space grids do better than most by crossings per word: the four space sheets have 61 crossings for 62 words, the second-highest ratio of any criss-cross page here with numbered grids, behind only back-to-school. On the challenge the mid-length words ECLIPSE, ASTEROID and GRAVITY carry three crossings each, while short words such as MARS and SUN get one crossing each wherever they appear.

Should this come before or after teaching the topic?

After, and matched to what the class has covered, because the four sheets draw on different parts of the topic. The starter needs only six planets plus COMET, GALAXY, ROCKET and ASTRONAUT, while the bigger grid alone has deep-space words such as QUASAR, PULSAR and ANDROMEDA that a unit on the solar system may never reach.

Is Pluto on the space criss-cross?

Yes, on two of the four sheets: the everyday sheet and the challenge. On both it has a single crossing, through ECLIPSE at its P on the everyday sheet and through ORBIT at its O on the challenge, and on the challenge it sits beside all eight planets, so a child counting the names there will get nine and need telling that PLUTO is a dwarf planet.

More questions about the Criss-Cross Puzzle Maker