Free Printable Back to School Word Search

Whether you're looking for a back to school word search for your classroom or for your children at home, I hope you enjoy this free printable!

Working on puzzles, including word searches, has a variety of benefits for both children and adults. They can help improve spelling, letter and word recognition, and problem solving skills (just to name a few).

These back to school word search free printables are a low-prep way to keep your kids busy without resorting to screen time and they come with an answer key to save you time.

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This back to school word search features 20 education themed words to seek and find, including:

• Alphabet
• Apple
• Backpack 
• Binder
• Books
• Bus
• Classroom
• Desk
• Learn
• Locker
• Lunchbox
• Notebook
• Paper
• Pencil
• Recess
• Ruler
• Scissors
• Student
• Teacher
• Whiteboard

Tips for using printables

Using printables is pretty straightforward, but these tips will help you make the most of these word searches and any other free printables you find!

It's easy to make this printable reusable if you use a laminator or dry erase pocket.

A dry erase pocket is basically a super strength page protector that's designed for use with dry (or wet) erase markers. It's a good alternative if you don't have a laminator.

If you find yourself using a lot of free printables, consider purchasing an at home laminating machine. They're very affordable and pay for themselves in about 10-20 uses when compared to the price of laminating at a copy shop.

If you chose to protect your pages for reuse, you may want to go ahead and print them on presentation paper so they look their best. Presentation paper is heavier than printer paper and has a special coating for crisp, vibrant images. 

The difference is more noticeable in real life, but the mermaid bingo card on the left was printed on presentation paper while the one on the right was printed on cardstock.

For one-time use, just plain printer paper is fine. 

Free printable back to school word searches

As always here on The Artisan Life, these printables are available free for personal use.

You can print and use them with your own kids, in your homeschool co-op, Sunday school class, or personal classroom, but please do not redistribute the digital files. Instead, just refer your friends and colleagues to this post so they can download the puzzles for themselves. 🙂

Related: Free printable first day of school signs

This is a more challenging word search for a child - younger kids may need some assistance. The words can be hidden forwards, backwards, and diagonally. The backwards words are (I think) trickiest to find! 

To help you, I am also including an answer key. 

These previews are just low resolution images. Please use the download links (highlighted with grey boxes) below each preview image to get the high resolution PDF. Downloads should start automatically, but you may need to authorize downloads from Dropbox if asked for permission.

First there's the puzzle with a paperclip background for a fun, school vibe. The paperclips are easy on your colored ink and would also look fine printed in black and white.

Then there's the same puzzle with a stack of books and an apple in the background. This one uses a little more ink and wouldn't translate as well into black and white.

Finally, there's a plain, only black and white version of the word search without any extra adornments. This is obviously the most ink-friendly version!