How to Make a Word Search with a Code for Your Child

Word searches, sometimes referred to as word finds, are a great way to keep your mind fresh and thinking. They are also a nice alternative to crosswords because anyone can do them, including children. Making a word search for your child is very easy and it can be something that you can use to keep their brain fresh during the Summer, or include in your homeschooling program. Making a word search that has a code in it is very easy and can give your child that extra motivation to figure out the word search, because they will want to know what the remaining letters in the word search say.

The first thing that you will want to do is to make a list of all of the words that you want to have in your word search. Then on a piece of paper write the words down at random, with some of them going straight across, diagonal, up and down. With the blank spots that you have for letters that are not part of a words in the word search count them. If you have twenty empty spots then you will have to make your secret phrase no more than twenty characters, without including the spaces as characters. If you want to help your child figure out the the secret message you can have somewhere on the paper lines representing the letters with gaps between them for each letter and bigger gaps to separate each word.

It helps if you have a key to your word search that you made for your child just in case they make a mistake on the secret message. It is up to you whether or not you want to go to the trouble. You can have making the puzzle fun for your little one by making it themed. Maybe you have all of the words the names of your family and friends and then the secret message can be something about how everyone loves your child very much. If you want it to be educational you can have the words all fit into the theme of what ever the secret phrase is. Like your words can include banana, monkey, ape, vine etc., when the phrase is something like "There are around one hundred and twenty-five species of monkeys." No matter what you decide to do you can fun doing it and your little one can have fun solving it.