Summer Word Search
- SNORKEL
- BEACHBALL
- SPLASHING
- POOL
- LEMONADE
- SUNSET
- SUNSCREEN
- BEACHCHAIR
- BARBECUE
- BOARDWALK
- CAMPFIRE
- FLIPFLOPS
Created for free at puzzleandprint.com
Your word search
Summer Word Search, Answer Key
- SNORKEL
- BEACHBALL
- SPLASHING
- POOL
- LEMONADE
- SUNSET
- SUNSCREEN
- BEACHCHAIR
- BARBECUE
- BOARDWALK
- CAMPFIRE
- FLIPFLOPS
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.
Summer word search, large print11 × 11 · 7 words · EasyDownload PDF ↓
Summer word search, everyday14 × 14 · 11 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Summer word search, more words15 × 15 · 14 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Summer 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.
Summer sheets earn their keep in the last weeks of school and through summer break, when the aim is usually a quiet ten minutes rather than a lesson. Most children arrive already knowing the words, so this is a sheet for filling an afternoon rather than teaching anything new.
The longest words on the ready-made sheets, SANDCASTLE, WATERMELON and SUNGLASSES, are ten letters each. The large-print sheet fits SUNGLASSES across one eleven-square row, and the other two first appear on the fourteen-square everyday sheet.
It travels well. Printed and folded into a bag, it covers a restaurant wait or a car ride and needs nothing but a pencil.
Why so many summer words are compounds
Seven of the forty begin with SUN: SUN itself, then SUNGLASSES, SUNSCREEN, SUNHAT, SUNSHINE, SUNBURN and SUNSET. Nine of the eleven entries with nine letters or more are two shorter words joined, FLIPFLOPS and BEACHBALL among them, with SPRINKLER and SPLASHING the only exceptions, and each comes apart into two words a child already knows, which is the one thing worth teaching off a sheet that is otherwise a break. VACATION is on a ready-made sheet, the everyday one, while SUNSET, LIFEGUARD and BEACHCHAIR are on none and wait in the maker.
SNORKEL and HAMMOCK, both on the challenge sheet, are the two that trip up spellers, one for a K that looks wrong and one for a double M nobody hears. FIREFLY and STARGAZE are the two most children have not written before, one an insect and the other a verb. FIREFLY is on the more-words and challenge sheets, but STARGAZE is on no ready-made sheet and has to be added in the maker.
Which summer sheet to take on a road trip
For a long drive, take the challenge sheet: seventeen squares, fifteen words, and the only summer sheet where words may also run backwards, upwards and diagonally upwards. The large-print sheet, eleven squares and seven words such as BEACH, SWIM and PICNIC, keeps every word reading across or down for a five- or six-year-old. The everyday sheet (fourteen squares, eleven words) and the more-words sheet (fifteen squares, fourteen words) add the two downward diagonals.
Eight of the fifteen challenge words, FIREFLY, WAVES, TOWEL, SHORTS, SUNHAT, FLIPFLOPS, SPRINKLER and GARDEN, are also on the more-words sheet, so a child who does that one on the way out meets them again on the way home in a bigger grid where they may run backwards. Every sheet prints as two pages with the answer key second, so the key can stay with the driver.
Common questions
Is this any use on a rainy day indoors?
It is honestly better on one. A sheet full of BEACH, POOL, SANDCASTLE and LEMONADE is more welcome when the weather has canceled all of them, and it takes about ten minutes, which is roughly the length of the problem.
Does it work for a summer camp or a goody bag?
It is one of the safest themes for a mixed group, because the vocabulary does not depend on anything having been taught. Print the everyday sheet, and the answer key on its own page means an adult does not have to stand over it.
Why do so many of the summer words start with sun?
Seven of them do: SUN, SUNGLASSES, SUNSCREEN, SUNHAT, SUNSHINE, SUNBURN and SUNSET, which is simply how summer words are built. No ready-made sheet has all seven: the large-print sheet has SUN and SUNGLASSES, the everyday sheet SUNGLASSES and SUNSCREEN, the more-words sheet SUNHAT, and the challenge sheet SUNHAT, SUNSHINE and SUNBURN, while SUNSET is on none of the four. SUN is never laid entirely over the start of SUNGLASSES, so it needs finding on its own.
Want to know when new printables go up?
New printables when they go up, mostly seasonal, a few times a year.