Halloween Word Search
- WHISPER
- RAVEN
- TRICKS
- COSTUME
- LANTERN
- GRAVEYARD
- WIZARD
- SPOOKY
- SCARECROW
- MOONLIT
- CANDY
- THUNDER
Created for free at puzzleandprint.com
Halloween word search
Build your own, or take one of four ready-made spooky sheets.
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Halloween Word Search, Answer Key
- WHISPER
- RAVEN
- TRICKS
- COSTUME
- LANTERN
- GRAVEYARD
- WIZARD
- SPOOKY
- SCARECROW
- MOONLIT
- CANDY
- THUNDER
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.
Halloween word search, large print11 × 11 · 7 words · Easy, across and down onlyDownload PDF ↓
Halloween word search, everyday14 × 14 · 11 words · Medium, adds diagonalsDownload PDF ↓
Halloween word search, more words15 × 15 · 14 words · Medium, adds diagonalsDownload PDF ↓
Halloween word search, challenge17 × 17 · 15 words · Hard, adds backwards wordsDownload 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.
Halloween is one of the few themes where children will happily do a reading exercise without noticing that it is one. The words are long and strange (cauldron, skeleton, midnight), which makes them good practice precisely because they are not words that turn up in a book for young readers every week.
The four ready-made sheets step up gradually. Large print runs across and down only in an eleven by eleven grid, which suits five to seven year olds. Everyday and More words move to fourteen and fifteen squares. Challenge is a seventeen by seventeen that allows backwards and diagonal words, which is where most adults start finding them interesting too.
These work well as a class-party activity, as something to put on the table at a children's party while you are still setting up, and as a quiet alternative for a child who would rather not go out trick-or-treating. Print a mixture of difficulties if you are handing them to a group of mixed ages, the same theme, so nobody feels singled out, but the right level of challenge each.
The Halloween list has 40 words and the four sheets use 33 of them, so GHOULISH, CARAMEL, RATTLE, SHIVER, CREAKY, MOONLIT and TRICKS are on no ready-made sheet. The maker on this page opens with twelve words drawn from the whole list, TRICKS and MOONLIT among them, in a fifteen by fifteen grid, or you can type your own words, and it prints the answer key on its own page unless you switch it off.
Which Halloween word search words are describing words
SPOOKY, CREEPY, FOGGY, HAUNTED, LURKING and HOWLING are the six words on the Halloween sheets that describe something rather than name it, and each is a shorter word with an ending added. The three ending in Y show a spelling rule worth pointing out. Fog becomes FOGGY with a doubled G, because fog has one short vowel followed by one consonant. Spook and creep have two vowels before their last letter, so SPOOKY and CREEPY simply add the Y. A child who can explain why FOGGY needs two Gs has understood the rule rather than memorized one word, and the same rule will turn up again in words like sunny and muddy.
HAUNTED, LURKING and HOWLING take their endings without any change, because haunt and lurk already end in two consonants and the OW in howl is a two-letter vowel sound, so nothing doubles and no E drops. Together the six make a ready word bank for describing a night scene: a foggy lane, a howling wind, a haunted house. SPOOKY and HAUNTED are on the everyday sheet, CREEPY is on More words and the challenge sheet, and FOGGY, LURKING and HOWLING appear only on the challenge sheet. A class that stops at Everyday will meet two of the six, so add the others to the board if the writing task needs them all.
Sorting the Halloween word search into real and make-believe
The More words sheet sorts most cleanly into real and make-believe: BATS, OWLS, RAVEN, COBWEB, MOON and SHADOW are things a child can actually see on an October night, while POTION, WIZARD and GOBLIN only exist in stories. FANGS is the word to argue about, since spiders and snakes really have them, so it belongs in either column depending on whose fangs they are. MASK and TREATS are real but made by people, which can become a third column for a class that wants one. MIDNIGHT is a time rather than a thing and CREEPY describes rather than names, so neither fits a column, and asking why is a quick way into the difference between naming words and describing ones.
The real column leads straight into a science question, because BATS and most OWLS hunt at night and sleep through the day, and RAVEN is a member of the crow family. On the everyday sheet the same sort works with fewer words: BATS and COBWEB are real, WITCH and GHOST come from stories, and BROOM, CANDY and MASK are everyday objects that only seem spooky because of the date. Ten minutes of sorting after the puzzle uses the vocabulary a second time, and it gives a child who finished the grid early something worth doing while the rest of the class catches up.
Common questions
Is any of it too frightening?
No: none of the four sheets has anything gory on it, and no word is a character from a film or game. GRAVEYARD is on the challenge sheet only and FANGS first appears on More words, so the darker words wait for older children. The large-print sheet keeps to PUMPKIN, LANTERN, COSTUME, SPIDER, CAULDRON, SKELETON and BROOM.
Why are the words so long?
Because long, unusual words are what make the theme worth doing, and the large-print sheet has the longest on average: its seven words average just under seven letters, and none is shorter than BROOM. Between them, Everyday and More words bring in four-letter words such as BATS, MASK, OWLS and MOON, and the challenge sheet climbs back above six letters a word with GRAVEYARD and SCARECROW, the only nine-letter words on the list.
Do the Halloween word search sheets share any words?
A few, between neighboring sheets. BROOM is on both the large-print and everyday sheets, the five from BATS to MIDNIGHT are on Everyday and More words, and the eight from CREEPY to GOBLIN are on More words and the challenge sheet, so a child moving up a sheet always starts with some words they have already found.
Want to know when new printables go up?
New printables when they go up, mostly seasonal, a few times a year.