Puzzles for Teachers
Browse an extensive collection of printable puzzles, brain teasers, mazes, crosswords, digital activities and a whole lot more to challenge your primary students in fresh and fun ways!
This teaching resource collection is teacher-created, with curriculum-aligned and editable resources available for both lesson planning and adding to your fast finisher activity box!
Curious about using puzzles in your classroom or looking for fresh ideas? Read on for a primer from our teacher team!
Types of Puzzles
There's a whole host of puzzles out there you can use to get your students more engaged in learning, develop problem-solving skills and reinforce the concepts you're teaching! Here are a few favourites from our teacher team (and you'll find printable versions of many of these in this collection)!
- Picture puzzles — Picture puzzles are a great teaching tool that require kids to use visual perception and problem-solving skills to identify patterns or differences in a set of pictures.
- Crossword puzzles — Often used by adults, these puzzles are kid-friendly too! They offer written clues and require students to fill in a grid with words that intersect.
- Tangram puzzles — These challenging puzzles for kids involve using a set of geometric shapes to create a larger picture or design.
- Logic puzzles — This learning tool requires kids to use reasoning and deduction to solve a problem. They usually involve a set of clues that need to be used to figure out the solution.
- Word searches — In this type of puzzle, a grid of letters is given with a list of words to find hidden within it. Students are challenged to go on the hunt for the word, often reading up, down, diagonally and sometimes even backward!
- Spot the difference — A popular feature in kids' magazines, these require our students to find the differences between two nearly identical pictures.
- Sequence puzzles — Sequence puzzles involve arranging a series of objects or symbols in a particular order, based on a set of rules or patterns. For example, students may practise skip counting as they place puzzle pieces in order based on the numbers displayed on each piece.
- Maze puzzles — Yes, mazes count as puzzles! They challenge kids to find their way through a maze to reach a goal or endpoint.
- Matching games — This is another type of puzzle you may not think of as a puzzle per se, but it is! Matching games involve finding pairs of matching items, such as shapes, colours, or numbers, in a set of cards or objects.
- Tarsia puzzles — Similar to jigsaw puzzles, tarsia puzzles are made up of irregularly shaped pieces that fit together in a specific way to form a larger picture or pattern. This type of puzzle has a twist, however! In a Tarsia puzzle, each piece contains a problem or question related to a particular topic or subject area. The students must match the pieces together by finding the correct answer or solution to each problem or question. Once all the pieces have been matched, they form a larger picture or pattern that provides a visual representation of the topic or concept being studied.
How Do You Use Puzzles in the Classroom?
Whether you're using tarsia puzzles to teach maths or crossword puzzles in your reading rotations, this is a versatile learning tool! Here are a few of the times they can come in handy:
- Introducing new concepts
- Reviewing concepts students have learned
- Reinforcing problem-solving skills
- Collaborative learning
- Learning through play
- Differentiated instruction
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Planet Puzzle Match-Up Activity
Use your knowledge of the solar system to complete 8 different planet puzzles.
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3 x Simple Dot-To-Dot Worksheets - Counting By Ones
3 fun dot-to-dot worksheets to use when learning to count by 1s.
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Multiplication Match-Up Puzzles
A match-up activity to assist students in understanding multiplication word problems.
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Addition Match-Up Puzzles
A set of 15 match-up cards to scaffold work with addition word problems.
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Homophones Crossword Puzzle
Challenge your students to complete this vocabulary crossword puzzle by completing the sentences with the correct homophone.
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Measurement Word Search with Solution
A fun word search to help your students learn measurement vocabulary.
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Polygon Puzzles - Division Worksheets
Line the sum up with the corresponding answer.
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Cooperation Puzzles - Teamwork Activity
Explore the benefits of cooperation with a tangram-style team-building activity.
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Back to School Word Search Worksheets
Warm up your students’ vocabulary skills with this set of Back to School word searches.
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OI and OY Words - Word Search
Explore words containing ‘oi’ and ‘oy’ with this set of differentiated word searches.
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Pirate's Treasure – Maze Quest
A fun pirate-themed maze for students to complete.
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Tangram Activity
A poster showing examples of tangram shapes and a tangram template.
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Dot-to-Dot Drawing - Alphabet - Dinosaur
Join the dots and letters to make a picture.
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Dot Day Division Tarsia Puzzle
Practise dividing two-digit by one-digit numbers with a Dot Day tarsia puzzle.
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Re- Prefix Crossword Puzzle
Review vocabulary skills and boost your students’ knowledge of the “Re-” prefix with a crossword puzzle worksheet.
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Synonyms Tarsia Puzzle
Have fun building vocabulary skills with a printable synonyms tarsia puzzle activity.
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Synonyms - Vocabulary Crossword Puzzle
Boost vocabulary skills with a fun synonym crossword puzzle.
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Syllable Type Mazes - Worksheets
A set of game-based worksheets to strengthen students’ understanding of the six types of syllables.
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Counting by 10's Maze
Find the fun and learn to skip count by 10s up to 100 with this engaging maze activity!
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Mini-Mystery – Who Drank the Teacher's Coffee?
A fun, logic-based activity where students read clues to solve the mystery.
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Complex Dot-to-dot – Skip Counting by Threes (Castle) – Worksheet
A complex dot-to-dot where students demonstrate skip counting by threes.
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Addition Maze – Dog and Bone Worksheet
A worksheet to use to practise finding missing addends.
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Organic Shape Puzzle
A puzzle focusing on the identification of organic shapes.
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1 to 20 Number Match-Up Puzzles
A set of 20 match-up puzzles to help students identify the numbers from 1 to 20.
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Dot-to-Dot Drawing - Numbers by 5 - Robot
Join the dots and numbers to make a picture.
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Dot-to-Dot Drawing - Numbers by 2 - Dinosaur
Join the dots and numbers to make a picture.
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Dot-to-Dot Drawing - Numbers by 1 - Elephant
Join the dots and numbers to make a picture.
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Australia Word Search with Solution
A fun word search to help your students learn and work with Australian related vocabulary.
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Polygon Puzzles - Subtraction Worksheets with Answers
Line the sum up with the corresponding answer.
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Numbers and Words 0-20 Word Search with Solution
A word search to help your students to learn the numbers and the spelling of their corresponding names.
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Earthly Word Search with Answers
The Earthly Word Search uses scientific vocabulary in a fun way!
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Perimeter of Composite Shapes Maze
Use this perimeter maze when teaching your students how to calculate the perimeter of composite shapes.