Nature Word Search
- MEADOW
- DUNE
- ANTLER
- OTTER
- COMPASS
- CAVERN
- CANOE
- VALLEY
- TRAIL
- BEAVER
- MAPLE
- BOULDER
Created for free at puzzleandprint.com
Your word search
Nature Word Search, Answer Key
- MEADOW
- DUNE
- ANTLER
- OTTER
- COMPASS
- CAVERN
- CANOE
- VALLEY
- TRAIL
- BEAVER
- MAPLE
- BOULDER
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.
Nature word search, large print11 × 11 · 7 words · EasyDownload PDF ↓
Nature word search, everyday14 × 14 · 11 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Nature word search, more words15 × 15 · 14 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Nature 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.
Outdoor vocabulary sits somewhere useful: familiar enough that children recognize most of it, but with enough unfamiliar words (thicket, boulder, hollow) to make the puzzle worth doing rather than just filling in.
It pairs naturally with a walk. Building a sheet from what you might actually see that afternoon, then finding the words afterwards, does more than either activity alone.
Older children can take the harder settings here without much trouble, because the words are long enough to be visible once you know what you are looking for. Compass and campfire announce themselves; moss and pine are the ones that hide.
For a camping trip, the everyday sheet is the one to pack: LANTERN, COMPASS, CAMPFIRE and PADDLE are all on it, along with the BIRCH and HERON you might spot from the tent. Printing two copies and racing turns it into a game for a rainy afternoon in the tent, and the answer key on its own page settles who finished first.
Which trees are hidden in the nature word search
Six trees are hidden in the nature list: MAPLE, CEDAR, BIRCH, PINE, WILLOW and SPRUCE. They split neatly in two, which makes a good question for a winter walk: PINE, SPRUCE and CEDAR are conifers that keep their needles all year, while MAPLE, BIRCH and WILLOW drop their leaves in fall. MAPLE and CEDAR are on the large print sheet, BIRCH on the everyday and more words sheets, PINE and WILLOW on more words and challenge, and SPRUCE on the challenge sheet alone, so a class working through the sheets in order meets the trees one or two at a time.
The other plants on the list are less tidy. MOSS, FERN and BRAMBLE are plants but not trees, ORCHID grows wild in woods and meadows as well as on windowsills, and LICHEN is not a plant at all: it is a fungus and an alga living together as a single growth, which is why it can cover bare rock. OTTER, HERON and BEAVER are the only animals on the list, and ANTLER is the only part of one. TIMBER is a tree after it has been felled, and a reminder of what a CANOE and a PADDLE were traditionally carved from. TIMBER, BEAVER, LICHEN and ORCHID are on none of the four ready-made sheets, so add them in the maker.
Which nature words belong in a geography lesson
Twelve of the nature words are landform and water words a geography lesson can use as they are: SUMMIT, RIDGE, VALLEY, GORGE, RAVINE, HOLLOW, CAVERN, DUNE, MARSH, RIVER, STREAM and RAPIDS. The high and low ground is the useful part. SUMMIT and RIDGE are the tops, VALLEY, GORGE and RAVINE the ground that drops away between, and asking a child to draw a hillside side-on and label it uses the words in a way the puzzle alone cannot. STREAM and RIVER are moving water at two sizes, RAPIDS a fast, broken stretch of either, MARSH water that barely moves, and DUNE the only landform on the list built by wind.
Every word on the large print nature sheet is five or six letters long, from MAPLE to FOREST, so there is no giveaway long word and no tiny one to lose. The everyday sheet is where the high ground begins, with SUMMIT, MEADOW and BOULDER, and the challenge sheet carries seven of the twelve landform and water words, VALLEY, RIDGE, GORGE, HOLLOW, MARSH, DUNE and STREAM, on a seventeen-square grid where they can run backwards. For a rivers or mountains unit with younger children, the more words sheet is the better choice: it has VALLEY, STREAM, RIDGE and RAPIDS on fifteen squares, and nothing on it runs backwards.
Common questions
Which words give children the most trouble?
The short ones, not the long ones. MOSS, PINE, FERN and DUNE are the only four-letter words on the list, and the challenge sheet carries all four on a seventeen-square grid where words can also run backwards, so that is where a child is most likely to be left hunting. The more words sheet has only MOSS and PINE, and the large print and everyday sheets have no word shorter than five letters.
Can we do this on a walk rather than at a table?
That is the best use of it. Print the large-print sheet, which uses MAPLE, OTTER, CANOE, CEDAR, RIVER, TRAIL and FOREST, and let the words be things to look for as well as things to find on paper. It turns the sheet into a record of where you went.
Does the nature word search suit a forest school session?
Yes, and the more words sheet is the one to take: it holds THICKET, BIRCH, MOSS, PINE, WILLOW, STREAM and HOLLOW, things many forest school sites have, on a fifteen-square grid with no backwards words. Slip it onto a clipboard, since it will be used standing up and outside.
Want to know when new printables go up?
New printables when they go up, mostly seasonal, a few times a year.