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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Maths Mazes (Factors)
A set of maths mazes that allow students to demonstrate their knowledge of factors.
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Dot-to-Dot Drawing - Numbers by 1 - Dove
Join the dots and numbers to make a picture.
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Scientific Method Crossword Puzzle
Use a Scientific Method crossword puzzle to review key vocabulary words surrounding science inquiry.
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Picture Puzzles - Team Building Activity
Build classroom community with a set of team-building puzzles for primary students.
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Erosion Crossword Puzzle
Review vocabulary related to erosion with a printable Erosion Crossword Puzzle and answer key.
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Noun and Verb Sentence Puzzles
Use this nouns and verbs game puzzle to help students identify nouns and their matching verbs while building simple sentences in a fun, hands-on way.
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Prefix Crossword Puzzle Worksheet
Review vocabulary skills and boost your students’ knowledge of prefixes with a printable crossword puzzle.
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Rocks and Minerals Crossword Puzzle
Use a Rocks and Minerals Crossword puzzle to review key science vocabulary.
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Picture-Based Sudoku for Kids
Use this set of sudoku for kids to enhance your students’ problem-solving and creative thinking skills.
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Unit Fraction Puzzles
Find matching representations of fractions on a number line and visual models while piecing together a 4-piece puzzle.
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Compound Words Crossword Puzzle Pack
Boost vocabulary skills with a pack of printable Compound Word Crossword Puzzles!
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Dividing Decimals Maths Mazes
Review how to divide a decimal by a decimal and a whole number with this set of maths mazes.
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Dot Day Tarsia - Division Practice Sheets
Practise dividing two-digit by one-digit numbers with Tarsia-Style Division Practice Sheets.
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Interior Angles of Shapes – Differentiated Mazes
Explore the interior angles of regular shapes with this differentiated, maze-inspired worksheet.
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Mystery Pattern Grids (Multiplication)
Students solve multiplication facts, interpret grid coordinates and draw shapes to reveal a mystery picture.
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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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Mini-Mystery – Who Owns the Dog? – Interactive PowerPoint
A fun, logic-based activity where students read clues to solve the mystery.
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Antonyms Tarsia Puzzle
Match antonym pairs with an engaging opposite words tarsia puzzle.
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National Tree Day – Environment Word Search
Print a word search to use on National Tree Day or Earth Day to help your students learn about conservation.
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Word Chain Mazes - Worksheets
Colour a path through the maze by identifying the changing phoneme to create a continuous word chain.
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Decimal Patterns Maths Mazes
Find your way through this set of maths mazes by determining the addition or subtraction pattern in a sequence of decimal numbers.
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Rounding Whole Numbers – Riddle Worksheets
Integrate riddles and maths with this set of rounding worksheets.
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Christmas Activity Mazes – Addition and Subtraction
Navigate these Christmas maze worksheets with some simple addition and subtraction to keep those minds active!
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Halloween Crossword Puzzle
Stretch your upper years students’ Halloween vocabularies and reading skills with a Halloween crossward puzzle.
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Classroom Icebreaker Game – Who Hacked Pixel Jump 5000?
A retro-style mystery game where students combine individual clues to reveal the solution.
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Technology Maze
A fun technology-themed maze for students to complete.
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Complex Dot-to-dot – Skip Counting by Sevens (Wolf) – Worksheet
A complex dot-to-dot where students demonstrate skip counting by sevens.
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Addition Maze – Bike Ride Worksheet
A worksheet to use to practise finding missing addends.
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Addition Maze – Dog and Bone Worksheet
A worksheet to use to practise finding missing addends.
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2D Shape Match-up Puzzles
A set of puzzles that match up 2D shapes and their properties.
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Celebrations Word Find – Worksheet
A word find with vocabulary themed around celebrations and holidays.
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Organic Shape Puzzle
A puzzle focusing on the identification of organic shapes.