Word find puzzles (sometimes referred to as "word search puzzles" or "word jumble puzzles") are puzzles were the goal is to find a number of words hidden within apparently random grid of letters. The challenge of the puzzle arises from two facts. Firstly, not all letters are actually part of a word. And, secondly, words can begin at any point in the grid and head off in a straight line in any direction at all, be that horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, including such hard-to-spot directions as right to left, upwards, and backwards diagonals.
Many people enjoy solving these types of puzzles, and children in particular can get a lot of enjoyment from them. Additionally, apart from being a peaceful but fun indoor activity for kids, another reason to introduce children to them as that they can be used both to introduce new words to children (and thus expand their vocabularies) and as a means of helping children pay attention to the exact spelling of words (hopefully improving their spelling skills).
It is possible to buy printed books containing word find puzzles, but if you want to legally use them in your own magazine or newsletter, or perhaps you're a teacher wishing to introduce them into a classroom, why not create your own? Furthermore an additional benefit of creating your own word find puzzles is that you can choose exactly which words are used in the puzzle, and thus theme the puzzle around any topic you like. Creating these puzzles is very simple with the help of a computer and some word find puzzle maker software - you simply enter a list of words and the software creates the puzzle for you. More sophisticated software packages even allow you to choose the word directions used (perhaps avoiding the harder directions if making a puzzle for younger children), or make custom shaped puzzles (for example, a Christmas tree shaped letter grid if making a Christmas themed puzzle).
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