Bugs and insects Word Search
- MIDGE
- LACEWING
- EARWIG
- WORM
- CHIGGER
- GNAT
- WASP
- APHID
- SCORPION
- DRAGONFLY
- SILKWORM
- MANTIS
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Bugs and Insects Word Search
Bugs, beetles and other small crawling things.
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Bugs and insects Word Search, Answer Key
- MIDGE
- LACEWING
- EARWIG
- WORM
- CHIGGER
- GNAT
- WASP
- APHID
- SCORPION
- DRAGONFLY
- SILKWORM
- MANTIS
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.
Bugs and insects word search, large print11 × 11 · 7 words · EasyDownload PDF ↓
Bugs and insects word search, everyday14 × 14 · 11 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Bugs and insects word search, more words15 × 15 · 14 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Bugs and insects 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.
Bugs are a fixture of early science teaching and this list follows that vocabulary closely, including the ones children reliably mix up: beetle and weevil, moth and mantis. Seeing them side by side in a word list is quietly useful.
Seven names on the forty-word list appear on none of the four ready-made sheets: CENTIPEDE, SCORPION, SILKWORM, LACEWING, THRIPS, CHIGGER and MIDGE. Type them into the maker above if a class wants to finish the whole list on a sheet of its own.
Bug words split neatly into short and long (ant, bee and fly against caterpillar and grasshopper), which is more useful than it sounds. Start a hesitant reader on the short ones and add the long ones once they are moving.
It pairs well with actually going outside and looking. A sheet done after a bug hunt lands differently from one done cold, because the words have something attached to them.
Which bugs on the insect word search are not what their names say
Several bug names on this list mislead: FIREFLY and LADYBUG are both beetles, and BUTTERFLY, DRAGONFLY, DAMSELFLY and MAYFLY are not flies. Seven words end in FLY, from FLY itself through BUTTERFLY, DRAGONFLY, FIREFLY, HOVERFLY and MAYFLY to DAMSELFLY, and only FLY and HOVERFLY belong to the true flies, the group that also holds GNAT, MOSQUITO and MIDGE, none of which carry the word at all. A true fly has one pair of wings, where a BUTTERFLY or a DRAGONFLY has two, so counting wings in a picture is a quick way for a child to test any name on the list.
The word bug has a strict meaning too. APHID, CICADA and STINKBUG are true bugs, insects that feed through mouthparts shaped like a drinking straw, while LADYBUG, despite its name, is not one. CHIGGER is not an insect at all but the larva of a mite, a relative of SPIDER; SILKWORM is not a worm but the caterpillar of a moth, spinning its cocoon from silk; and THRIPS is singular as well as plural, so strictly there is no such thing as a thrip. Sorting the forty into true bugs, beetles, flies and the rest makes a sharp classification task for an older class, and it rarely comes out the way the names suggest.
Which bug sheet has GRASSHOPPER and CATERPILLAR on it
GRASSHOPPER and CATERPILLAR, the two longest names on the bug list at eleven letters each, are both on the everyday sheet, and CATERPILLAR stays on for the more words sheet. The everyday sheet is where the long words arrive all at once: BUTTERFLY and DRAGONFLY join them on a fourteen-square grid where words can also run down a diagonal, so a child moving up from the large print sheet meets length and a new direction together. More words carries CATERPILLAR, MOSQUITO, FIREFLY, TERMITE and APHID over from the everyday sheet and adds nine more, among them EARWIG, HORNET, LOCUST, WEEVIL and MANTIS, names children usually know less well, on a fifteen-square grid at the same medium setting.
The large print sheet holds ANT, BEE, FLY, WASP, MOTH, BEETLE and SPIDER, running only across and down, and BEE is the first three letters of BEETLE, but the answer key marks BEE in a place of its own, so a child who circles the start of BEETLE still has a BEE to find. That is worth turning into the lesson: point at BEETLE and ask what smaller word is hiding in it. The challenge sheet drops the eleven-letter words and leans on the FLY family instead, HOVERFLY, MAYFLY and DAMSELFLY, which share their last three letters and can run in any of eight directions, so a child who spots F, L and Y in a line has to work out which of the three it belongs to.
Common questions
Spiders are not insects. Why are they on the list?
Because a child asking for a bug word search means spiders too, along with SNAIL, WORM, MILLIPEDE, CENTIPEDE and SCORPION, none of which are insects either. If you are teaching classification, having them on the sheet is a better argument than leaving them off.
One of my children is frightened of wasps. Can I avoid them?
Yes, by printing the everyday sheet: WASP is only on the large print sheet, and HORNET, which is a kind of wasp, is only on the more words and challenge sheets, so the everyday sheet has neither. For any other size, use the maker above with your own list and leave out whatever you need to.
Is a ladybird the same as a ladybug?
Yes: LADYBUG is the American name and ladybird the British one for the same small spotted beetle. The list uses LADYBUG, which is on the everyday sheet, so a class in Britain may need to be told before they start. If you would rather use ladybird, the maker above will build a sheet from your own list.
Want to know when new printables go up?
New printables when they go up, mostly seasonal, a few times a year.