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Transportation Word Search

Transportation by road, rail, sea and air.

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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

Transportation Word Search

  • BARGE
  • BIKE
  • AMBULANCE
  • HOVERCRAFT
  • YACHT
  • MINIBUS
  • CAMPER
  • KAYAK
  • BULLDOZER
  • CANOE
  • PLANE
  • TAXI

Created for free at puzzleandprint.com

Transportation Word Search, Answer Key

  • BARGE
  • BIKE
  • AMBULANCE
  • HOVERCRAFT
  • YACHT
  • MINIBUS
  • CAMPER
  • KAYAK
  • BULLDOZER
  • CANOE
  • PLANE
  • TAXI

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.

Transportation word search printable, large print: 11 by 11 grid, 7 words, easyTransportation word search, large print11 × 11 · 7 words · EasyDownload PDF ↓Transportation word search printable, everyday: 14 by 14 grid, 11 words, mediumTransportation word search, everyday14 × 14 · 11 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓Transportation word search printable, more words: 15 by 15 grid, 14 words, mediumTransportation word search, more words15 × 15 · 14 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓Transportation word search printable, challenge: 17 by 17 grid, 15 words, hardTransportation 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.

Vehicles are reliably popular with younger children and the words are mostly short, so this places well in a small grid. It is a good first theme for a child who has not done a word search before.

The list spans all four ways of traveling, so the finished sheet supports an easy sorting question: which of these go on water? That extends a two-minute activity into something more.

Seven of the forty words, CHARIOT, RICKSHAW, FORKLIFT, BULLDOZER, AIRSHIP, JETSKI and TANDEM, are on none of the four ready-made sheets, so they are the ones to type into the maker above for a fifth sheet.

This one travels. A sheet built from what you might pass on the way is a better distraction than a generic list, and takes a minute to put together before you leave.

Which transportation words came into English from other languages

Several of the vehicles on the transportation list arrived in English from other languages, and their spellings still show it: KAYAK comes from an Inuit word, YACHT from Dutch, GONDOLA from the Italian of Venice, RICKSHAW from Japanese, and CANOE from a Caribbean language by way of Spanish. YACHT is the hardest of them to spell, with a ch that makes no sound at all, and it sits on the everyday and more-words sheets. KAYAK is the neatest: it reads the same backwards, so on the challenge sheet, where words can run in reverse, it looks exactly the same whichever way it was placed.

CAMPER came the long way around: camp reached English through French from the Latin campus, an open field, and English added the er, so the word names a person who camps as well as the vehicle they sleep in. CHARIOT and SLEIGH belong mostly to stories, and SLEIGH carries the same silent gh as eight and weigh. On the challenge sheet, GONDOLA and HOVERCRAFT make an unlikely pair, one rowed along canals for centuries and the other riding on a cushion of air, and asking a child which of the two is older is a good question to finish on.

What sub, mono and mini tell a child about a vehicle

The front of a transportation word often says what kind of vehicle it is: sub means under, mono means one and mini means small, so a SUBMARINE goes under the sea, a SUBWAY runs under the ground, a MONORAIL runs on a single rail and a MINIBUS is a small BUS. Teaching those three prefixes from this list gives a child a way into words they have never met. SUBMARINE and SUBWAY share the more-words sheet, and MINIBUS and MONORAIL are both on the challenge sheet, so either sheet can carry a short lesson on how English builds a long word from a short one.

Five more vehicles are plain compounds that come apart into words a child already knows: MOTORCYCLE, HOVERCRAFT, AIRSHIP, FORKLIFT and JETSKI. One of the short words on the large-print sheet also turns up inside a longer one on the list, BUS in MINIBUS, and the two never share a sheet, since MINIBUS waits until the challenge sheet, so a child cannot mistake the three letters inside the longer word for a BUS of its own. Spotting the small word inside the big one is a good habit for a reader, even when it is a nuisance in a word search.

Common questions

What suits a long car ride?

The large-print sheet, which uses CAR, BUS, TRAIN, PLANE, BOAT, TRUCK and BIKE. Nearly all of it can be spotted through the window as well as on the page, which buys considerably more than the ten minutes the puzzle takes.

Which words are the hardest to place in a small grid?

HELICOPTER, HOVERCRAFT and MOTORCYCLE, at ten letters, are the longest words on the list, followed by AMBULANCE, SUBMARINE and BULLDOZER at nine. None of them is on the 11-square large-print sheet; HELICOPTER is on the 14-square everyday sheet, AMBULANCE and SUBMARINE are on the more-words and challenge sheets, HOVERCRAFT and MOTORCYCLE appear only on the 17-square challenge sheet, and BULLDOZER is on none of the four.

Does SUBWAY on the transportation word search mean an underground train?

Yes: on a list of vehicles SUBWAY carries its American meaning, an underground railway. In Britain a subway is more often a foot tunnel under a busy road, and the London railway is the Underground or the Tube, so a British class may need the word explained. SUBWAY is on the everyday and more-words sheets.

More questions about the Word Search Maker