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Musical Instruments Word Search

Instruments from across the orchestra and beyond.

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Your puzzle

Where the words come from
Kind of puzzle
36 themes, grouped by kind.
4 to 25 from this theme
Print size
10 to 20 squares
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 word search

Musical instruments Word Search

  • PICCOLO
  • OBOE
  • XYLOPHONE
  • MANDOLIN
  • UKULELE
  • LUTE
  • PIANO
  • KEYBOARD
  • MARACAS
  • SITAR
  • SAXOPHONE
  • HARMONICA

Created for free at puzzleandprint.com

Musical instruments Word Search, Answer Key

  • PICCOLO
  • OBOE
  • XYLOPHONE
  • MANDOLIN
  • UKULELE
  • LUTE
  • PIANO
  • KEYBOARD
  • MARACAS
  • SITAR
  • SAXOPHONE
  • HARMONICA

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.

Musical instruments word search printable, large print: 11 by 11 grid, 7 words, easyMusical instruments word search, large print11 × 11 · 7 words · EasyDownload PDF ↓Musical instruments word search printable, everyday: 14 by 14 grid, 11 words, mediumMusical instruments word search, everyday14 × 14 · 11 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓Musical instruments word search printable, more words: 15 by 15 grid, 14 words, mediumMusical instruments word search, more words15 × 15 · 14 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓Musical instruments word search printable, challenge: 17 by 17 grid, 15 words, hardMusical instruments 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.

Instrument names are unusual vocabulary: children often know the sound and the shape long before they can spell the word. XYLOPHONE and ACCORDION are decoding practice disguised as a music worksheet.

It fits neatly into a music topic, and running the puzzle just before a lesson gives the vocabulary a head start. Recognizing a written word you have already met is much easier than meeting it cold.

The longer entries reward a larger grid: six of the forty names run to nine letters or more. If you are working with younger children, the large-print sheet stops at seven letters, and TRUMPET is the longest of its seven words.

The hardest instrument names to spell

Forty instruments, and a good share of them are spelled in ways the sound does not predict. XYLOPHONE opens with an X that says Z, and both it and SAXOPHONE spell their F sound PH. ACCORDION, BASSOON and PICCOLO each double a consonant where nothing in the sound suggests one. CELLO starts with a CH sound and no H. A child who can find these on a grid is doing genuine reading work, because none of them can be sounded out from scratch.

The short end is short for real: DRUM, HARP, TUBA, OBOE, BASS and LUTE are all four letters, and OBOE is four letters with three vowels, which is worth pointing out. UKULELE is seven letters built from only four, U, K, L and E, and three of those four appear twice. SITAR, ZITHER and TIMPANI are the three almost nobody will have written before: SITAR is on the challenge sheet, while ZITHER and TIMPANI, like LUTE, are on no ready-made sheet and appear only if you add them in the maker on this page.

Which music word search to print before a lesson

The four sheets work down the list in order, so each picks up roughly where the last left off. The large-print sheet is eleven squares and the first seven names, PIANO to CELLO, running only left to right or top to bottom. The everyday sheet is fourteen squares and eleven words from CELLO to BASS, the one for a music unit in an elementary class. More words is fifteen squares and fourteen words from ACCORDION to MARACAS, and it is the first sheet with TAMBOURINE, the longest name on the list. The challenge sheet is seventeen squares and fifteen words on the hardest setting, where words also run backwards.

Because neighboring sheets share words, they make a natural sequence: CELLO links the first two, five words carry from everyday to more words, and eight carry on to the challenge sheet. The challenge sheet then adds seven names on no other sheet, MANDOLIN, BASSOON, TROMBONE, PICCOLO, SITAR, BAGPIPES and CASTANETS, so it suits a child who already plays.

Common questions

Does this suit a child learning an instrument?

It suits the moment just before they choose one. Between them the four ready-made sheets name 33 of the forty instruments, from PIANO and GUITAR on the large-print sheet to BAGPIPES and CASTANETS on the challenge sheet, and a child who has found a word is far more likely to ask what it sounds like.

Why is TRIANGLE on both this list and the shapes one?

Because it is genuinely two things, and children enjoy catching that. Here it is the percussion instrument, found on the everyday and more-words sheets, while on the shapes page it sits on the large-print sheet. It is a useful reminder that the same word can be filed under two subjects without either being wrong.

Which instrument names are hardest to spell?

XYLOPHONE, SAXOPHONE, ACCORDION and BASSOON trip up the most readers, and the sheets bring them in gradually. SAXOPHONE is on the everyday sheet, ACCORDION on the everyday and more-words sheets, XYLOPHONE on the more-words and challenge sheets, and BASSOON on the challenge sheet only. Reading each aloud before its sheet goes out is the simplest way to help.

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