Puzzles Teaching Resources
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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Dot-to-Dot Drawing - Numbers by 2 - Frog
Join the dots and numbers to make a picture.
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Dot-to-Dot Drawing - Numbers by 2 - Alien
Join the dots and numbers to make a picture.
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Polygon Puzzles - Subtraction Worksheets with Answers
Line the sum up with the corresponding answer.
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Number Matching Puzzle - Division
A hands-on game to play when learning about dividing numbers.
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Dot-to-Dot Drawing - Numbers by 5 - Dinosaur
Join the dots and numbers to make a picture.
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Counting Picture Puzzle Numbers 6-10
Practise counting 6 to 10 objects and matching groups to numbers through this 15-piece picnic scene picture puzzle
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Counting Picture Puzzle Numbers 1-5
Practise counting objects within 5 and matching groups to numbers through this 15-piece camping scene picture puzzle
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Bowerbird Word Search
Explore the vocabulary surrounding the world of Bowerbirds with this printable word search.
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Telling the Time Year 2 Tarsia Puzzle
Solve the tarsia puzzle and practise matching digital times with their corresponding word forms.
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Christmas Maths Puzzle - Counting to 10
Count groups up to 10 with a printable Christmas maths puzzle.
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Christmas Activity Sheets Workbook
Have a blast completing the fun activities in this printable Christmas activity sheet workbook.
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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.
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Soil Vocabulary Word Search
Immerse your students in the subject-specific vocabulary related to soil with this word search perfect for primary science lessons.
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Natural Disasters – Printable Puzzles
Match pictures and facts of various natural disasters with this set of printable science puzzles.
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Pictograph Puzzles
Practise reading and interpreting pictographs with these fun puzzles which require students to match pictographs with other data displays with matching data.
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Adding and Subtracting Integers - Tarsia Puzzle
Practise adding and subtracting integers with a printable Tarsia puzzle!
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Water Cycle Crossword Puzzle
Review water cycle vocabulary with a crossword puzzle.
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Synonym and Antonym Crossword Puzzle
Review vocabulary skills and boost your students’ knowledge of synonyms and antonyms with a crossword puzzle worksheet.
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Renewable and Nonrenewable Resources – Crossword Puzzle
Reinforce science vocabulary with a renewable and nonrenewable resources crossword puzzle.
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Renewable Energy Word Search
Review science vocabulary terms with an engaging renewable energy word search.
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Synonyms Tarsia Puzzle
Have fun building vocabulary skills with a printable synonyms tarsia puzzle activity.
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Blending Phonemes - Word Puzzles
Practise blending sounds to encode and decode words with these hands-on word puzzles.
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Find the Whole From a Percent — Year 6 Maths Mazes
Print a set of 3 maths mazes for year 6 to practise solving percentage problems.
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Goods and Services Word Search
Stretch your students’ business vocabulary with this economics-focused word search that features examples of goods and services.
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Force and Motion Vocabulary Puzzles
Reinforce science vocabulary with this set of 22 force and motion vocabulary puzzles.
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Halloween Themed Division Riddles - Worksheet
Have a bit of division fun with our riddle-based Halloween sheets!
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Mini-Mystery – Who Stole the Cookie?
A fun, logic-based activity where students read clues to solve the mystery.
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Mini-Mystery – Who Killed the Class Plant?
A fun, logic-based activity where students read clues to solve the mystery.
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Addition Maze – Dog and Bone Worksheet
A worksheet to use to practise finding missing addends.
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Uppercase and Lowercase Letter Maze - 'Bb'
A fun maze to use when learning how to identify uppercase and lowercase letters.
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Maths Mazes (Two-digit Addition)
A set of three mazes that require students to add two-digit numbers.
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NAIDOC Week Connection to Country Word Search - Upper Primary
A NAIDOC Week Connection to Country Word Search suitable for upper primary school students.