Digital Word Searches

In a previous post I had mentioned how I tutor my cousin who is in 5th grade once a week. Something we focus heavily on are his weekly spelling words. We have our session after he's out of school on Thursday's- this is our last ditch effort to be able to ace those words before his test on Friday's. 

It becomes super boring, and I mean superrrr boring to read him his words over Zoom and have him spell them back to me over and over again. I was desperate to figure out another way for him to practice his words that wasn't so boring. I began creating online word searches. I told Tyler a couple weeks ago we were going to do something a little different and do a word search. His response was "how do you plan on making that work?" I told him I had found a website where you could made the word search into a game. Immediately he was excited simply because of the idea it was a 'game'. 

The name of the website is The WordSearch and you can completely customize your puzzle. It's a quick and easy generator to use and it breaks up the mundane habits we have when practicing spelling words. The format of the words search is also customizable. Below I show the typical layout we're all used to and then a fun puzzle shaped search that we used for this week's spelling words. 

The website is completely free and saves all previous word searches. This is a great resource for teachers! That way they don't have to recreate searches year after year. It provides you with a 'play' link and an 'edit' link. This way you can go and edit the search if need be. I simply share the play link with Tyler over the Zoom chat and he shares his screen with me. I can help him out with a word if he's stuck or quickly fix an issue if something is wrong with the puzzle by quickly referencing each link. 

I mentioned the search is completely customizable and I mean it's completely customizable! There are varying levels of difficulty that can be selected, a kids version, hints that can be turned on or off, and color themes. The first puzzle I had created, I hadn't realized there were all of these features that could be changed. About halfway through the puzzle Tyler started flying through his words and I couldn't quite figure it out. I realized that every once in awhile a specific letter on the puzzle would glow. I asked him what he was doing to make the letters glow. Reluctantly he told me, if you type the first letter of one of the words it will light up those specific letters in the search narrowing down the results. In the following weeks I made sure to shut that feature off as he doesn't need those hints. 

All of their puzzles can be accessed and played online or saved and printed for in person use. The WordSearch automatically creates a key as well that can be referenced as needed.  I have fun as a tutor creating the searches and watching Tyler play the word search 'game'. I remember being in elementary school and constantly just spelling my words out loud. The WordSearch provides an opportunity to practice spelling words in a different way!

If interested in creating your own WordSearch visit their website below!

https://thewordsearch.com/maker/