Free Thanksgiving Sequence Maze

Happy Turkey Day! Here is a free Thanksgiving Sequence Maze that you can print for your kids to work on while they wait for the turkey to bake. It's a slightly different take on the standard maze in that the solver must work their way through the maze in a particular order. Visiting these iconic Thanksgiving images in the wrong order is just plain wrong and will make the turkey burn! (oh no!) 

I hope your kids enjoy this new style of maze...and have a delicious dinner! 

Thanksgiving and Easel

TpT has created a digital platform for students called Easel (you have probably heard of it already!) I have been a bit slow to create digital versions of my puzzles because I haven't been convinced that they could work that way! But TpT keeps adding more features and I've been finding ways around the limitations. The bottom line is that I have been working hard to add the digital overlay feature to my products! It will take me a long time to get all of them done and some of them will never work in this format anyway. But I will try my best!

This week I have been creating digital versions of my Thanksgiving mini-books. I will always believe that they will be more fun for students printed and stapled into a cute little mini-book, but the digital version ain't half bad either! You can see an example above of one of the puzzles in digital format. It is a Mish Mash puzzle. You can see a solving tip in the margin and boxes where students type in their answers. Students can also use the pen and highlighter tools to cross things off, make notes, or draw!

This is an example of a Dot to Dot gone virtual! You can see that the student can change the pen color and fairly easily draw lines. Not all my puzzles will work digitally. Coloring pages are just not easy to use this way. I have included one of the coloring page types in the digital Thanksgiving sets because the pictures are big and easy(ish) to color. On the other hand, I have omitted all the Color by 100's Chart pages because they are just too small and tedious to try to color digitally.

So if you are interested in some fun Thanksgiving puzzles for your kids, (either digital or printable) just click on the picture above! It will take you to my TpT store where you will find mini-books for grades k-6 and a bundle of all 7 sets for a discount!

And don't forget to check out all the free Thanksgiving puzzles I have available here on the blog!

Fall What Am I Free Puzzles

Two free puzzles today! They are Fall themed What Am I? puzzles. You might notice that they are puzzles #2 and #3, and wonder whatever happened to puzzle #1! It is included in my new Fall Puzzles set that went live in my TpT shop today! So first, some more about the free puzzles...you can download them both by clicking on either picture. You will get a PDF file with both puzzles included and answers. What Am I? puzzles have clues that kids have to solve. Each solved clue will have correspond to numbers which will decode the hidden Fall word! The pictures are also clues, but are mixed up on the page.

And back to the new set of Fall Puzzles for the store! The first puzzle is a leaf-shaped word search filled with fall words and phrases. The second and third puzzles are both Label It style puzzles in which students must decode some Fall activities. The code consists of addition and subtraction problems on the first page, and multiplication and division problems on the second page. They are basic math facts practice, so nothing too difficult. You can choose whichever page you kids need to practice, or if they know all their facts already, they can do both! The last puzzle is the What Am I #1.

Click on this picture to go to my TpT store, The Puzzle Den, to purchase this set. It is very affordable at $1.50 and is easy to print and solve. I will get to building an Easel version of these soon too! 

Halloween Puzzles

Halloween Mini Puzzle Books are on sale until Oct 31st, 2021!

Halloween is next week! It is our favorite holiday. My kids are too old to trick or treat (have been for years) but they still love dressing up and handing out candies! If you are looking for a unique way to celebrate Halloween with your kids, try one of my Halloween Mini Puzzle Books. They are packed with 15 puzzles and answer keys. I have books available for grades K through 6 and each grade has unique puzzles. These puzzle books are four dollars in my store. They print on eleven sheets of paper, which you then cut in half and staple together. If you don't want to print the answer key, you can just print the eight pages of puzzles. 

I also have Teeny-Tiny Halloween Puzzle Books available. These little guys are one dollar each and print onto a single sheet of paper. One small snip and some folding and you can create this cute little book! Kids would love getting one of these books in their treat bags!

I hope everyone has a super awesome (and spooky) Halloween this year!

Autumn Mish Mash Puzzles

Autumn is the best time of the year! Here are some fun word puzzles to help you and yours celebrate the season. Just click on any of the pictures and you will be able to download a PDF file from Google Drive containing all 3 puzzles plus answers. 

You can find more Mish Mash puzzles here. Enjoy!

More Fall Code Breakers

These are the last two Fall Code Breaker puzzles! They use a different code from sets 1&2, which you can download here if you missed them. Puzzle #4 has a lot of good smelling words in it, like cinnamon, sunflower, and bonfire! Just click on the pictures to download the puzzles. Each download is a PDF file with the answers included.

Happy Fall!

Fall Code Breakers #1&2

Some Fall Code Breakers are now available! I released Fall Code Breaker #1 a couple years ago. It got a small update and you can download it by clicking on the image below. Fall Code Breaker #2 is new, but uses the same code as #1. When your children solve these kinds of puzzles, they are practicing spelling and growing their vocabularies! I try to mix in nouns related to the season with adjectives that describe the sensations of Fall, like brisk, orange, and crunchy. If your kids don't know what the words mean, it's a great time of year to take them outside and show them! 

Enjoy this best of all seasons!

More Halloween Code Breakers

I created 2 more Halloween themed Code Breaker puzzles. Set 3 and 4 use a different code than sets 1 and 2. You can download these new puzzles by clicking on the pictures. You will get a pdf from Google Drive that includes answers. (If you are trying to download from a school network, you might be blocked from Google Drive by your admins. Try downloading from home instead!)

These are simple puzzles, but great fun! You can extend the activity by asking your children to encrypt a note in one of the secret codes. It could even be a poetry verse or quotation they are trying to memorize. They might also have fun writing secret notes to their friends! These are basic images, but some might have a hard time drawing them. So instead, you can download the template below where your kids can create up to 4 secret codes of their own!

I hope you and your students enjoy these free puzzles! (I have more Fall ones coming soon!)

Halloween Code Breaker #2

It's October and Halloween month! Yay! Here is a free puzzle called a Code Breaker. It contains a bunch of Halloween related words that have been encoded with little Halloween icons! So cute! These are very easy to solve, so very appropriate for younger elementary aged students. These types of puzzles help children practice spelling and visual perception skills, and expose them to a larger vocabulary.

You can also download Code Breaker #1 for extra crypto-cracking fun!

Hope your month is super spooky!

Free Pumpkin Shaped Fill In Puzzle

A new shaped Fill In puzzle for your students! I enjoy creating these puzzles! This one comes with 2 versions. The easy version is shown and has starter letters for clues. The hard version has no starter letters. Just click on the picture above, or here, to download a Google Drive document containing both versions and an answer key.

Pumpkin season is coming soon! I, for one, can't wait!

Free Back to School Pyramid Puzzles

Back to School is right around the corner, but also already happening in many parts of the US! Here are some Back to School Pyramid Puzzles to help you celebrate! The first one is an Addition Pyramids puzzle where students will use their powerful addition skills to discover some interesting facts about school. The second one is a Multiplication Pyramids puzzle and students will get some practice with those multiplication skills! Both are available in this Google Drive PDF download.

You can discover some other interesting facts about learning and school at the TeachThought website. Did you know that "children who participate in laughing activities experience increase in memory retention?" Or that playing games can increase children's positive experience with math? Sounds good to me!

The US Census Bureau has a downloadable sheet of Back to School facts along with a Teacher's Guide. There are some neat ideas for activities in the guide, so check it out!

If you are looking for more puzzles for Back to School, I have tons in my TpT store! This set has 3 puzzles that are quick and easy to print and solve. There are actually 5 pages of puzzles in this set. There is a Word Search that comes in an easy and hard version, 2 pages of Crypto-Riddles practicing +/- and */÷, and finally a Label It! puzzle about scissors. So really packed with options for only $1.50!

I also have mini-books crammed with 15 pages of puzzles for each grade level from K through 6. These take a little more preparation with some cutting and stapling. But kids love mini-books so they are worth it! These run $4.00 each.

Lastly in the Back to School theme, I also have some Spanish School Supplies puzzles. This set contains 16 puzzles for elementary students of various levels. This set prints on full size sheets and includes flashcards and a list of focus vocabulary. It runs $4.00 also.

Just wanted to include everything I have that deals with Back to School in some way. I think I got them all! 

So now a little bit of depressing thoughts... I hope everyone stays safe and healthy during this new school year. It has been very controversial out there. But whether you are sending your kids back to in-person school, keeping them home for online school, are newly homeschooling, or always have, I wish you ALL the very best experiences. 

Addition Pyramids - Beach Facts - Free Puzzle

For those still hitting the beach in the last bits of summer...here's a little addition practice with some interesting beach facts! And I have some Back to School Pyramids coming soon!

If you and your students are studying Spanish this year, I just completed two new products for my TpT store. I have a new Spanish Beach set and a Spanish Summer set. Each set comes with 15 puzzles of varying levels and flash cards for the 12 focus words.

National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day

August 4th is National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day! Download this puzzle for your kids. They will discover which ingredients they will need to bake up some delicious cookies of their own! You can challenge them to solve the puzzle, then find each of the ingredients in your cupboards. Two challenges in one! I bet most of your kids will know where the chocolate chips are...at least mine certainly do!

You can also download this word search from National Chocolate Chip Day on May 15th. It is all about chocolate chips and relevant to this glorious day! I do love some good cookies!

Also, Teachers Pay Teachers is having a Back to School sale. You can find all my products on sale 20% off, plus if you use the discount code "BTS21" you will get an extra discount! 

Enjoy!

July 4th and Summer What Am I? Puzzles

More free What Am I? puzzles to entertain your summer vacationers this week! Above is a July 4th themed puzzle. That holiday is coming up very soon! And below is the second Summer themed puzzle. Hope your kids like these!

Summer Road Trip Puzzles

Road Trips are back! Everything has been on hold for so long since the start of the pandemic, it's really awesome that people are getting vaccinated and we can get back to living! Ginny and I just made a quick road trip to VA Beach to visit family and friends. It was so nice to get out and about with fewer worries (we were still a bit nervous honestly!) 

We even got down to the beach and wandered along the boardwalk. Here's a picture of us hanging out with Neptune!

So if your family is getting ready to hit the road this summer, consider printing some puzzles to keep those kids busy in car. I have some Road Trip puzzles that I wrote a number of years ago. You can find here. There are visual puzzles, word puzzles and even scavenger hunts! I remember having a lot of fun with scavenger hunts on long car trips when I was a kid.

This blog has a list of some other fun games you can play with your kids while you drive. We played the License Plate game and the Alphabet game all the time when I was growing up. The Alphabet game is great because it requires no preparation. We always play this one cooperatively, so that everyone watches all the signs looking for the next letter of the alphabet. It is good fun! Ghost is a word game that can be played very easily in the car also. You need good spellers for this one! It's great for teens and adults. I have taught my kids these games too, and we still play them on car trips! 

I hope you all have some lovely and SAFE trips this summer!