A back to school crossword puzzle is an educational and fun activity to start out the school year. It gives kids the opportunity to work on vocabulary and spelling in a fun way.
Here are several free printable back to school crossword puzzles designed with a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grader in mind.
There’s also a puzzle for 5th grade.
They can all be downloaded free below.
For older kids in grades 6 to 8, there’s also a middle school crossword puzzle.
2nd Grade Crossword Puzzle
This crossword puzzle is at a grade 2 level. The answers are the spelling words from these 2nd grade back to school themed words.
There are 10 words for kids to solve.
7 of the words have written clues for kids to solve, and the other 3 words are based on an image.
The majority of the time there are 2 clues for a word, so that if the child can’t think of the word based on its definition, then perhaps a clue with a fill in the blank using the word in the context of a sentence might help.
3rd Grade School Crossword Puzzle
This crossword puzzle is meant for a third grader. The words are the spelling words from the back to school themed spelling week of these grade 3 spelling words.
This crossword puzzle has 12 clues, with 2 of them being image based.
4th Grade Back to School Crossword Puzzle
And this last crossword puzzle is ideal for a 4th grader. It uses the back to school themed grade 4 spelling words.
This 4th grade crossword has 14 school words for kids to solve, with 10 word clues and 4 image clues.
Printable Crossword Puzzles
These free back to school crossword puzzles can be downloaded below.
The answers are included in the pdf.
5th Grade Back to School Crossword
This puzzle was designed with 5th graders in mind.
The words to solve include the back-to-school 5th grade spelling list and previously learned spelling words. There are 27 clues for kids to solve.
You can download the puzzle below.
It includes an answer page.
More Printable Back to School Activities
Looking for more back to school activities? Here are 2 other word puzzles that use the same words:
- school word searches for 2nd, 3rd & 4th grade
- school themed word scrambles for all 3 grades
The combination of all 3 puzzles help kids really learn the school themed spelling list for each grade.
For older kids you might prefer:
- back to school crossword for middle school kids in grades 6 to 8
- school word search for 5th grade
- back to school word search for grade 6
- difficult back to school word search
- school themed fill in puzzles
Back to School Crossword Puzzle Answer Key
You’ll find the answer keys for the back to school crossword puzzles below.
Here’s the answer key for the 2nd grade puzzle:
Down:
2 – ANSWER
4 – DONE
5 – GLUE
8 – TAPE
10 – WORK
Across:
1 – TEACH
3 – STUDY
6 – LEARN
7 – TEST
9 – DESK
And here are the answers to the third grade puzzle:
Down:
1 – GRADE
3 – CLASS
5 – MARK
6 – PENCIL
7 – TEACHER
Across:
2 – PASSED
4 – EXAM
8 – LESSON
9 – QUIZ
10 – TAUGHT
11 – THIRD
And finally the answer key for the 4th grade puzzle:
Down:
1 – LEARNING
3 – PROJECT
5 – HOMEWORK
7 – NOTEBOOK
9 – STUDYING
10 – STUDIED
Across:
2 – BINDER
4 – RECESS
6 – EDUCATE
8 – CLASSROOM
11 – FINISHED
12 – RULER
Here’s the answer key for the 5th grade crossword puzzle:
Down:
1 – UNDERLINE
3 – HOMESCHOOLING
4 – EXAM
5 – ART
6 – SCIENCE
7 – REPEATED
8 – TUTOR
10 – PRINCIPAL
11 – EDUCATION
12 – COURSE
16 – CORRECT
17 – TEST
20 – ESL
24 – BUS
25 – IEP
Across:
2 – TEACH
9 – ABSENT
13 – DICTIONARY
14 – GRADUATE
15 – PENCIL
18 – PRIVATE
19 – STUDENTS
21 – GLUE
22 – PUPIL
23 – SUBSTITUTE
26 – FRACTIONS
27 – PUBLIC
You can find more free printable crossword puzzles for kids here.
Kim Ureke
Friday 6th of August 2021
Thank you. The crossword puzzles are missing clues! For 4th grade, clues 2, 7 and 12 are missing.
Melanie Thomas
Friday 6th of August 2021
The clues for those are picture clues. The pictures of the backpack, ruler, binder and notebook are the clues. Beside each image it says which clue it is for. For example: 2 Down, 12 Across, etc.
Kristen
Thursday 15th of August 2019
My 6 year old is just starting to do crossword puzzles - they are so much fun!
Karla Cook
Thursday 8th of August 2019
I love these! It's nice to have a variety to offer and it's fun that they are themed for back-to-school.
Melanie Thomas
Sunday 11th of August 2019
Thank you Karla