Fall Word Search
- BOOTS
- SCARECROW
- PUMPKIN
- CIDER
- ORCHARD
- CORNMAZE
- CHILLY
- HARVEST
- MISTY
- CRISP
- APPLE
- HAYRIDE
Created for free at puzzleandprint.com
Your word search
Fall Word Search, Answer Key
- BOOTS
- SCARECROW
- PUMPKIN
- CIDER
- ORCHARD
- CORNMAZE
- CHILLY
- HARVEST
- MISTY
- CRISP
- APPLE
- HAYRIDE
Created for free at puzzleandprint.com
Or take one that is already made
Four sheets, each with a different job. Every one is a two-page PDF, the puzzle, then the answer key on its own page.
Fall word search, large print11 × 11 · 7 words · EasyDownload PDF ↓
Fall word search, everyday14 × 14 · 11 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Fall word search, more words15 × 15 · 14 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Fall word search, challenge17 × 17 · 15 words · HardDownload 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.
Fall vocabulary sits alongside harvest and habitat topics, and much of it is collectible: acorn, chestnut, pinecone. A sheet paired with an actual walk works better than either alone. Find the word, then go and find the thing.
Several of the fall words are about how the season feels rather than how it looks. Frost, chilly, bonfire and drizzle describe cold, smoke and wet weather, and between them they sit on the everyday, more-words and challenge sheets, so any of those three makes a fair prompt for a few lines of descriptive writing once it is finished.
Not every fall word is about the outdoors. Scarf, boots, sweater and mittens are what children pull on as the weather turns, and blanket is what they curl up under once they are home, so the list runs from the woodland into the house. Scarf is on the large-print sheet, boots, sweater and mittens are all on the everyday sheet, and blanket is on the more-words and challenge sheets.
Which fall words trip children up
Forty fall words, and the useful ones are the ones children do not already own. SQUIRREL, on the everyday sheet, is the spelling most likely to go wrong: the double R, and the REL ending that sounds like nothing it is spelled with. CHESTNUT hides a T that only appears when you write it down. PUMPKIN and APPLE look easy and are, which is why they sit on the large-print sheet, while MUSHROOM waits for the more-words sheet. The challenge sheet brings in BRAMBLE and CORNMAZE, country words rather than picture-book words. They describe what a lane or a farm is actually like in October, and a child who can find them can usually be persuaded to say what they mean.
Several fall words are compounds worth pointing out. SCARECROW, PINECONE, HAYRIDE and WOODLAND are each two short words a child already knows, and noticing the join turns nine-letter SCARECROW into scare and CROW. HAYRIDE is on the everyday and more-words sheets, PINECONE and WOODLAND on more words and challenge, and SCARECROW on the challenge sheet alone. The list holds others, such as HAYSTACK and WOODSMOKE, which are on no ready-made sheet and suit one of your own.
Which fall sheet suits which age
Print the large-print sheet for a child of five or six: its seven words are the first seven on the list, LEAF to CIDER, none longer than seven letters, on an eleven-square grid. The everyday sheet puts eleven words on fourteen squares, with SQUIRREL the longest, and suits most of an elementary classroom. More words, fifteen squares and fourteen words, brings in four eight-letter words, WOODLAND, MUSHROOM, CHESTNUT and PINECONE. The challenge sheet, seventeen squares and fifteen words, is the only one where words can run backwards, and it holds the longest word on any sheet, SCARECROW, which makes it the one for an older child or an adult.
Each fall sheet prints as two pages, the puzzle and then its answer key, and because the four sheets work through the list in order, neighboring sheets share words: CIDER is on both of the first two, everyday and more words share CORN, HAYRIDE, BONFIRE, MITTENS and RAKE, and more words and challenge share eight. The last seven words on the list, including TWILIGHT, ORCHARD and GOLDEN, are on no ready-made sheet, and the maker at the top of the page opens with the first twelve words, ready to swap them in.
Common questions
Is this the same as a Halloween sheet?
No, and deliberately so. This list is the season rather than the holiday: LEAF, ACORN, HARVEST, CIDER and HAYRIDE, with no ghosts in it. It stays usable across the whole of September to November rather than for one week of it.
Which words will children not know?
Probably WOODSMOKE, and none of the four ready-made sheets uses it; it stays on the forty-word list for a sheet built with the maker. Among the printed words, GOURD, on the more-words and challenge sheets, is the likeliest to need explaining, and CORNMAZE, on the challenge sheet only, is corn maze written as one word.
What age is the fall word search for?
Five upward for the large-print sheet and about eight upward for the challenge sheet, with the everyday and more-words sheets in between. Reading level matters more than age here: a child who can read LEAF, APPLE and SCARF can manage the first sheet, but CHESTNUT and SCARECROW on the challenge sheet need a reader who can hold a long word in mind while scanning the grid.
Want to know when new printables go up?
New printables when they go up, mostly seasonal, a few times a year.