Eighteen Christmas words with their letters shuffled, numbered down the sheet with a line beside each to write the answer. They run from four letters to eleven and get longer as you go down the page, so the sheet starts easy and finishes hard. The answer key prints as a second sheet with the solution set beside each scramble.
Short words first
The sheet is ordered by length rather than at random. Whichever words are drawn, the four and five letter ones are at the top and the ten and eleven letter ones are at the foot. A child who stalls has still finished the first twelve, and an adult who wants a challenge starts at the bottom.
The letters are set with a space between each one rather than run together, which makes a scramble readable at a glance without making it any easier to solve. Run together they look like a typing error instead of a puzzle.
Eight word lists
The word list control opens on Mixed and also offers Christmas classics, Santa and the workshop, food and drink, winter and snow, tree and decorations, carols and singing, and the nativity. They are the same pools the word search uses, so a themed pair of sheets can be printed for the same group.
Shuffle draws a new set from whichever list is chosen, and reshuffles the letters as well, so two sheets from the same list are not the same puzzle.
The answer key
The key is a separate sheet with the same numbering, the answer in capitals and the scramble repeated beside it. Printing both gives a two page PDF, which is what you want if somebody other than you is running the game.
Switch the answer key control to Leave off and the download is a single page. That is the version to hand out, because an answer sheet stapled behind a puzzle gets read.
Questions
- How many words are in the Christmas word scramble?
- Eighteen as it opens, with sixteen and twenty on the control above the sheet. They are ordered by length, from four letter words at the top to eleven letter ones at the foot.
- Does it come with an answer key?
- Yes. The key prints as a second sheet with the answer in capitals beside each scramble, so the download is a two page PDF. Switching the control to Leave off gives the puzzle alone.
- Can I choose the kind of words?
- Yes. Eight word lists are available above the sheet, from Mixed to the nativity, food and drink, carols and singing and winter and snow. They match the lists used by the word search.
- Is it hard enough for adults?
- The bottom of the sheet is. The last two are ten and eleven letters, which is a real puzzle, while the four and five letter words at the top are there so a child can make a start.