Valentine's Day Word Search
- DOILY
- CRUSH
- VERSE
- SINCERE
- TOKEN
- SPARKLE
- FLOWERS
- ADMIRE
- ARROW
- FONDNESS
- HUGS
- ENVELOPE
Created for free at puzzleandprint.com
Valentine's Day Word Search
Hearts, cards and the vocabulary of being kind.
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Valentine's Day Word Search, Answer Key
- DOILY
- CRUSH
- VERSE
- SINCERE
- TOKEN
- SPARKLE
- FLOWERS
- ADMIRE
- ARROW
- FONDNESS
- HUGS
- ENVELOPE
Created for free at puzzleandprint.com
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Four sheets, each with a different job. Every one is a two-page PDF, the puzzle, then the answer key on its own page.
Valentine's Day word search, large print11 × 11 · 7 words · EasyDownload PDF ↓
Valentine's Day word search, everyday14 × 14 · 11 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Valentine's Day word search, more words15 × 15 · 14 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Valentine's Day 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.
The most useful thing about this list is that it is mostly about friendship rather than romance. Kindness, friend and admire, all three on the everyday sheet, are the words an elementary classroom actually wants in February, and they are the ones that carry past the day itself.
It is a strong list for feelings work. Fondness, cherish, devoted and affection are shades of the same idea, all four on the challenge sheet, and asking a child to rank them or use each in a sentence turns a completed puzzle into twenty more minutes of work.
The longer entries are genuinely hard to spot in a grid: five words on the sheets run to eight letters or more, and four of them, affection, fondness, treasure and envelope, are on the challenge sheet. For younger children the large-print sheet stays with short words, and candy is the only one it shares with the everyday sheet, so a child moving up meets one word they have already found.
Card-making is the obvious pairing. A child writing a card has an immediate use for dearest, poem and token, which the more words and challenge sheets spell out between them, so the puzzle supplies the spelling for free.
Which Valentine's words are both a noun and a verb
Many of the Valentine's words are both a noun and a verb, among them LOVE, CRUSH, BLUSH, WHISPER, PROMISE, TREASURE, SPARKLE, GLITTER and GIFT. That makes the list a ready-made grammar exercise for the week of February 14, because a child can write two sentences for each word, one where it is a thing and one where it is something you do: a promise, and to promise. A few words refuse to do both. ENVELOPE, DOILY, BOUQUET and POEM are only ever nouns, ADMIRE and CHERISH are only ever verbs, and SINCERE and THOUGHTFUL only describe, which gives the exercise a second column for the words that will not swap.
ENVELOPE carries a spelling lesson of its own: with the final e it is the paper a card goes in, and without it, envelop, it is a verb meaning to wrap something up completely. BOUQUET is the hardest word on the list to spell, since it comes from French, holds the only Q on the list and ends in a T that is not said. AFFECTION, with its double F, is nine letters long and the longest word on any of the four sheets; both it and BOUQUET are on the challenge sheet, where they can also run backwards. DOILY is the one to explain before anyone starts: a small mat of paper or fabric lace, often used in card-making.
How the four Valentine's sheets move from hearts to feelings
The four Valentine's sheets move from the objects of the day toward the feelings behind it. Large print is the decorations, HEART, CUPID, ROSES, LOVE, CARD, RIBBON and CANDY, seven words of four to six letters on an eleven-square grid that runs only across and down. Everyday keeps a few objects, ARROW, LACE, FLOWERS and GIFT, and brings in FRIEND, KINDNESS and HUGS, which is where the classroom version of the day really begins. More words is where the card-writing vocabulary lands, DEAREST, ENVELOPE, POEM, VERSE and SECRET, on a fifteen-square grid with diagonals, so it is the sheet to keep on the table while cards are being written.
The challenge Valentine's sheet is where the stronger feelings sit: CHERISH, DEVOTED, FONDNESS, TREASURE and AFFECTION, among fifteen words that can run backwards and diagonally across seventeen squares. Its shortest word is POEM, at four letters, so there is no three-letter word to lose in a corner and the difficulty comes from length and direction. SINCERE, WHISPER, PROMISE, CARING, THOUGHTFUL and TENDER, six of the gentlest words on the list, are not on any of the four sheets, so a class that wants them should use the maker above, which picks from all forty, or type them in as a list of its own.
Common questions
Is this suitable for an elementary classroom?
It is written to be. SMITTEN, the most grown-up word on the list, is on none of the four sheets, and CRUSH appears only on the everyday and more words sheets, where it sits among FRIEND, KINDNESS and HUGS on the first and FLOWERS, GIFT and BLUSH on the second.
What can we do with it besides the puzzle?
Sort the words a child has found into things you can hold and things you feel. The challenge sheet suits this best, because its fifteen words include TOKEN, ENVELOPE, DOILY and BOUQUET, which you can hold, and CHERISH, DEVOTED, FONDNESS and AFFECTION, which you feel, with TREASURE, SECRET and BLUSH left for the class to argue over.
What age is the Valentine's challenge sheet for?
Roughly nine and up, or any confident reader: its fifteen words include AFFECTION, FONDNESS and BOUQUET, and they can run backwards and diagonally across a seventeen-square grid. Younger children who want the same theme do better on the everyday sheet, where no word runs backwards.
Want to know when new printables go up?
New printables when they go up, mostly seasonal, a few times a year.