Re-useable Valentine's Day Word Search

I used Excel to make a word search game for the children, some of whom are already sounding out words for reading and writing (play-based curriculum works!).  Many of the children were successful despite it being their first experience with a game like this. I laminated both the word search puzzle and the word list so they could erase and re-use.

Some points to remember for next time:

• overlapping words makes it trickier
• words that are phonetically spelled and pronounced makes the experience more rich as the children read on their own without help
• for younger children, I'd keep it simple with shorter words and a smaller card (maybe rows and columns)
• the "xoxoxoxo" and "xoxoxo" were space fillers so that there weren't too many extraneous letters that are confusing for the eyes of pre-readers

This post was inspired by: