Late December and the first week of January
How to play and solve New Year word searches
A New Year word search does two jobs a week apart. Before the holiday it is a party sheet, for a family table on New Year's Eve or a daytime party that counts down to noon. After it, it is the first sheet of January, handed out on the first morning back at school while everyone remembers how to sit still.
How to play a New Year word search
- Every word in the list is hidden in the grid, in a straight line.
- On Easy, words run across and down only; harder sheets add diagonals, then backward words.
- Find each word, ring it in the grid, and cross it off the list.
- The answer key on the second page shows every word ringed.
How to find New Year words faster, step by step
Most people look for a word's first letter. Look for its rarest letter instead. Here is a Hard New Year grid from this page, where words run in all eight directions, and the word HOLIDAY.
Step 1. H starts the word, but there are 11 of them in this grid. Y is the rarest letter in HOLIDAY: only 4. Shade them.
Step 2. In the word, A sits next to Y. Check the eight squares around each Y: only one has an A beside it.
Step 3. Follow the line from there in both directions. HOLIDAY runs right to left, backward. Ring it and cross it off.
When you are stuck
- Start with the odd letters. On this list, CLOCK, FIREWORKS, JANUARY, KAZOO, NOISEMAKER and SEQUINS each have a J, K, Q, X or Z, and those letters have few hiding places.
- Go row by row with a finger or a ruler, so your eye does not jump.
- Check backward. On Hard and Expert, a word you cannot find may be running right to left or upward.
- Save the short words for last. By then most squares are already ringed.
A New Year list for a classroom, and why there is no year on the sheet
The list is built for both, so it leans on words about the turn of the year rather than the party itself: CALENDAR, JANUARY, RESOLUTION and COUNTDOWN work in a classroom in the first week of January as well as they do at a party.
Some New Year vocabulary belongs to the grown-up party: CHAMPAGNE, TOAST and CHEERS. In a second-grade classroom on the first day back they are the wrong words, and a teacher should not have to read every word on a list to find that out.
So this page keeps two lists. The default is the classroom list: everything about the countdown, the calendar and the year ahead, with those three words left out. The full list puts them back in one click, for an office party or an adults' evening where they belong.
Neither list has a year in it. A word search can only hide letters, so 2027 cannot go in the grid, and a year spelled out in words would make the sheet useless next January. JANUARY, DECEMBER and MIDNIGHT mark the date instead, every year, so a sheet you print this winter works next winter too.
The classroom list: 54 words
Every word except the three about party drinks: CHAMPAGNE, TOAST and CHEERS. This is the default on this page.
- Balloons
- Banner
- Begin
- Bells
- Calendar
- Celebrate
- Change
- Chime
- Clock
- Confetti
- Countdown
- Dance
- December
- Dream
- Family
- Festive
- Fireworks
- Fresh
- Friends
- Future
- Glitter
- Goals
- Happy
- Hats
- Holiday
- Hope
- Horns
- Hugs
- January
- Kazoo
- Laughter
- Memories
- Midnight
- Moments
- Music
- Noisemaker
- Party
- Plans
- Promise
- Reflect
- Resolution
- Sequins
- Snacks
- Sparklers
- Stars
- Start
- Streamers
- Tiara
- Tradition
- Twelve
- Welcome
- Wishes
- Winter
- Year
The other 3, and why they are separate
These are on the full list rather than the default one. They are not harder to find; they are a different decision about the room you are printing for.
- Champagne
- Cheers
- Toast
Both lists are checked when this site is built: every word is four to twelve letters, no word contains another word on the same list, and the default list is a true part of the full one. A word inside another word has no honest answer key, so that check fails the build rather than being repaired quietly at print time.
Which New Year word search to print
| Who it is for | Sheet | Settings | Squares that are part of a word |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ages 5 to 7 | Easy | Easy, 10×10, 10 words, classroom list | 55% |
| Young children who finish early | Easy, with pictures to color | Easy, 12×12, 12 words, classroom list, outlines to color | 53% |
| Grades 2 to 5 | Medium | Medium, 14×14, 16 words, classroom list | 43% |
| Teens and family tables | Hard | Hard, 16×16, 20 words, full list | 41% |
| Adults and puzzle fans | Expert, for adults | Expert, 20×20, 27 words, full list | 34% |
| Seniors and low vision | Large print | Easy, 12×12, 12 words, full list, large print | 49% |
Measured on the six sheets above, which the cards download.
- The level decides which way words run, and that is what makes a word hard to spot: Easy is across and down only, which a young child can scan one direction at a time.
- Grid size is not difficulty. A bigger grid is a longer hunt through more filler: 55% of the 10×10 sheet is part of a word, against 34% of the 20×20 one.
- Expert fills the empty squares with letters taken from the word list itself, so hunting for an unusual letter stops working.
- Large print with a smaller grid beats normal print with a bigger one for anyone working with a magnifier.
- Hidden message: turn it on in the builder and every square that is not part of a word holds a letter of "Happy New Year! Make it your best one yet", read across from the top row once all the words are found. Type your own instead for a class or a party; the message decides how many words fit.
Answer keys you can trust
- Every word appears exactly once. Each grid is scanned in all eight directions after it is filled, and a stray second copy made by the filler letters is broken up. The six sheets above were checked this way when this page was built.
- No word hides inside another. Two words where one contains the other never share a list, because finding one would find the other in squares the key does not ring.
- No rude words in the filler. Random letters read eight ways can spell things no one wants on a child's sheet. Every grid is checked in every direction and its filler changed until none remain.
- The key is page 2 of the same PDF, drawn from the same grid, so it cannot belong to a different puzzle.
- The key says where each word starts. Letters run across the top of its grid and numbers down the side, and each word in its list carries its first square and an arrow: BELLS K4 ↘ on the Hard sheet above. A key printed in gray still settles an argument.
New Year word search activities
The pictures, and when to switch them off
The New Year pictures along the top and bottom of the puzzle page are simple drawings made for this site. They sit in the page margins, so they never shrink the grid or the word list, and they stay off the answer key.
- In color is the default, and it is the one to use for a party table or a fridge door.
- Outlines to color in turns the border into something to color, which gives the child who finishes first something to do with the crayons. It also uses almost no ink.
- No pictures suits older students and adults, and anyone photocopying a class set who wants the cleanest copy.
Free to print, and what this page does not do
Every sheet is made in your browser and there is no account, so a pasted word list never leaves your computer. More in how we make puzzle packs. The terms of use let teachers, parents, clubs, libraries and senior centers print and copy the sheets and their answer keys.
- A hidden message needs a grid of 20×20 or smaller. The whole New Year list covers at most 369 squares, so on a 30×30 the message would need 531 letters or more.
- Your own word list keeps the pictures, but its words are not checked against the holiday list.