Word Scramble Puzzles for Kids

Every one of the 120 puzzles in this 131-page word scramble book gets a page to itself. The top of the page gives a clue in one sentence, the middle holds the jumbled letters on big colored tiles, and the bottom has one dotted box per letter for the answer. The cover gives the age range as 6 to 10.

How the words get longer

There are eight themes of 15 puzzles: animals, food, school, nature, sports, family, colors and seasons. Each theme starts with four-letter words and climbs, so the animal set opens with BIRD and FROG and ends with RHINOCEROS. Counted across the whole book, 40 answers have four or five letters, 40 have six or seven, and 40 have eight to ten.

The clues give a second way in when the letters won’t budge. “It carries its house on its back” is TURTLE. “Corn that goes pop when it gets hot” is POPCORN. A child who reads the clue first is often halfway there before touching the tiles.

The pages at the back

The answer key lists all 120 words by puzzle number on two pages, grouped by theme, so a grown-up can check an answer without flipping through the book. The puzzle map has 120 numbered stars, colored by level, for the child to fill in one at a time. Three tracker pages have columns for the word, the date and how easy it felt the second time. The last page to fill in is a certificate with space for a grown-up’s signature.

Printing

Print at 100% scale, not “fit to page,” so the letter tiles and boxes stay the size they were drawn. Plain printer paper works for the puzzles. The pages are type and flat blocks of color with no photos, and card stock is worth it only for the certificate.