Word Seek Puzzle Maker
Word seek puzzles, which are also sometimes known as "word search puzzles" or "word find puzzles", are puzzles in which the task is to find a number of words hidden with a grid of letters. The words can begin at any point in the grid, and can be arranged in any direction at all, be that horizontal (both left to right, and right to left are allowed), vertical (downwards or upwards), or even along the diagonals. Additionally, the person solving the puzzle may or may not be given the list of words to look for - although, obviously, the task is a lot harder without a word list.
There are a number of things that make word seek puzzles ideal for newsletters and magazines, as well as for classroom use. These include the facts that the person creating the puzzle can choose whatever words they want to appear in the puzzle (thus making the puzzle about any theme or topic that they like), and that the difficulty level can be varied by changing the size of the grid or by perhaps omitting some of the harder word orientations (like backwards or some of the diagonals). Furthermore, as far as classroom use is concerned, these puzzles can be used to introduce children to new words, and to help them learn the spellings of words they already know (since they must pay close attention to the exact spelling of words).
As far as creating these puzzles is concerned there is a hard way and an easy way. The hard way is to do it by hand using pen and paper - but that can take hours! The easy way is to use a computer and some word seek puzzle maker software - in that case, you put in your choice of words and you can have a puzzle ready in seconds.