Family Word Search
- GRANNY
- RELATIVE
- STEPDAD
- NIECE
- OLDEST
- GUARDIAN
- SON
- UNCLE
- INFANT
- PARENT
- GRANDPA
- TODDLER
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Your word search
Family Word Search, Answer Key
- GRANNY
- RELATIVE
- STEPDAD
- NIECE
- OLDEST
- GUARDIAN
- SON
- UNCLE
- INFANT
- PARENT
- GRANDPA
- TODDLER
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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.
Family word search, large print11 × 11 · 7 words · EasyDownload PDF ↓
Family word search, everyday14 × 14 · 11 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Family word search, more words15 × 15 · 14 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Family 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.
Family vocabulary is among the first any child learns and among the first they need to write. This list includes both the everyday words and the more formal ones that appear later in reading: NEPHEW waits for the everyday sheet, and RELATIVE and SIBLING for the more-words sheet.
Be aware that families differ, and a sheet listing every relation is not a description of anyone in particular. It is vocabulary, not a template, and worth framing that way with a class.
Spelling is where the family list gets hard: DAUGHTER hides a silent gh, NEPHEW spells its f sound with ph, and NIECE puts the i before the e. All three sit on the everyday sheet, so it is the one to read aloud before anyone starts.
It is worth typing your own family’s names into the maker as a list of your own, with a few words copied from this one mixed in; the maker skips anything shorter than three letters, so a two-letter name needs a longer form. A puzzle with real people in it holds attention far longer than one with generic labels.
Which family words come in pairs, and which work for anyone
Eighteen of the forty family words come in male and female pairs: MOTHER and FATHER, SISTER and BROTHER, SON and DAUGHTER, AUNT and UNCLE, NIECE and NEPHEW, GRANDMA and GRANDPA, HUSBAND and WIFE, GODMOTHER and GODFATHER, and STEPMOM and STEPDAD. Matching up the pairs once the words are found is a quick exercise, and NIECE and NEPHEW sound so little alike that they are the pair most worth learning together. STEPMOM is spelled the American way on the list, where a British child would write stepmum, which is worth a word if a child in the class learned it that way.
Many of the other words name a relationship without saying boy or girl: PARENT, SIBLING, COUSIN, TWIN, RELATIVE, GRANDCHILD, GUARDIAN, ELDER and ANCESTOR, along with the age words BABY, INFANT, TODDLER and NEWBORN. Those are the words to reach for when a child’s family does not fit the pairs, and COUSIN is a good one to point out, because unlike AUNT or NIECE it covers boys and girls alike. GRANDSON is on the list without a partner; granddaughter, at thirteen letters, would be longer than any word on it, and GRANDCHILD covers both.
Which family words a child starting school needs first
A child starting school needs the seven words on the large-print family sheet first: MOTHER, FATHER, SISTER, BROTHER, BABY, GRANDMA and GRANDPA, the closest relations, none of them longer than seven letters, set in an eleven-square grid with nothing running diagonally. The everyday sheet then steps outside the house to AUNT, UNCLE, COUSIN, NIECE and NEPHEW, and the four sheets carry on moving outward in that way, from home to the wider family and then on to the more formal words, so a child can work through them in order across a term, one sheet at a time.
Seven words never reach a printed sheet: YOUNGEST, OLDEST, KINDRED, HOUSEHOLD, ANCESTOR, NEWBORN and GUARDIAN. GUARDIAN matters most of the seven, since it is the word for the adult at home in some children’s lives, and a child looking for their own family on the page should be able to find it. The maker at the top of the page draws its words from all forty rather than from the four sheets, so pressing New puzzle can bring these seven in, or GUARDIAN can be typed into a list of your own when it is the word one child in the class needs to see.
Common questions
Does this assume a particular kind of family?
It tries not to. The list carries STEPMOM, STEPDAD, GODMOTHER, GODFATHER and GUARDIAN alongside MOTHER and FATHER, so most children can find someone in their own house on it. If the words you need are not there, the maker above takes your own.
Can this be used to talk about a family tree?
It leads into one naturally. NIECE, NEPHEW and COUSIN, the words children most often guess at, all sit on the everyday sheet, and drawing the tree afterwards to work out which one applies to whom is usually more interesting than the puzzle was. ANCESTOR, the word for the top of the tree, is on the list but on no printed sheet.
Does the family word search include mom and dad?
Not in those words: parents appear as MOTHER, FATHER and PARENT, and the only informal names for them are PAPA, which means a father in some homes and a grandfather in others, and STEPMOM and STEPDAD, both on the challenge sheet. The rest of the informal names belong to grandparents, GRANDMA, GRANDPA, GRANNY and NANA. For a young child who only says mom and dad, the maker at the top of the page will take those words as a list of your own.
Want to know when new printables go up?
New printables when they go up, mostly seasonal, a few times a year.