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Body Parts Word Search

A word search dedicated to parts of the body, perfect for learning about ourselves. Hidden in the grid are nine words to find: head, arm, leg, hand, foot, eye, nose, mouth and heart. Knowing these words is one of the most practical things a child can learn. Print it for free or download it as a PDF: ideal for a science lesson or a simple classroom activity.

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✏️ Create your own word search

Created for free at creapuzzle.com

Body Parts, one by one

The nine words in this grid name parts of the body that children use every day, from head to foot. Below is a short note on each one, useful for talking about how the body works once the grid is solved.

Head — Contains the brain, which controls the whole body and never stops working, even while we sleep.

Arm — Lets us lift, push and hug, bending thanks to the elbow.

Leg — Among the strongest parts of the body, letting us walk, run and jump.

Hand — With its five fingers, an incredible tool for precision: writing, drawing, holding tiny objects.

Foot — Supports the whole body's weight and keeps us balanced; it also has five toes.

Eye — Lets us see colours and shapes; we have two, protected by eyelids and eyelashes.

Nose — Used for breathing and smelling, and connected closely to taste.

Mouth — With lips, teeth and tongue, lets us eat, talk and smile.

Heart — A tireless muscle that beats around a hundred thousand times a day, pumping blood through the whole body.

The body in numbers

The body is full of surprising numbers, and children love to hear them. A baby is born with about three hundred bones, many of which join together as it grows, leaving 206 in an adult. Each hand has 27 bones and each foot 26, which means that more than half of an adult's bones are in the hands and feet. The longest bone is the femur, in the leg, and the smallest, the stapes, is in the ear and is only a few millimetres long.

Other parts work without a pause. The heart is about the size of a fist, and the brain, which weighs a little over a kilogram, receives upside-down pictures from the eyes and turns them the right way up without us noticing. The nose can tell apart thousands of smells and works with the mouth to recognise flavours, which is why food seems tasteless when you have a cold. Children have twenty baby teeth, which start to fall out at around six, while adults have thirty-two.

Four ways to move, draw and count

The body is the best teaching aid there is, so this puzzle can quickly leave the page:

  • Simon says. Play the classic game with the nine words: “Simon says touch your nose, wave your hand, stamp your foot.” Anyone who moves without the magic words is out.
  • Draw round me. Lay a child on a long sheet of paper and draw an outline of the body. Then everyone writes the nine words of the grid next to the right part.
  • Pairs and singles. Which of the nine words come in pairs and which are single? Arms, legs, hands, feet and eyes come in twos; head, nose, mouth and heart are single. Notice that most plurals add an s, but foot becomes feet.
  • Five senses. Link each part to a sense: eye and sight, nose and smell, mouth and taste, hand and touch. One sense is missing, hearing, so add ear to the list and ask the children to find an extra word of their own.

How this grid is built

The grid is 12×12 squares and hides nine words, almost all of them on the diagonals: eight diagonal and only one horizontal, ARM, along the top row. Three words slope down to the right (HEAD, HAND and FOOT) and five slope down to the left (LEG, EYE, NOSE, MOUTH and HEART), so you read those from top right to bottom left. MOUTH and HEART, with five letters, are the longest; ARM, LEG and EYE, with three letters each, are the shortest. EYE reads the same in both directions, so it can be found twice.

More about the body

The generator with the Human Body theme contains the same words plus ear, so you can print a grid with ten parts of the body. Add knee, elbow, shoulder, neck and finger to make your own, and choose the 13×13 grid for a bigger search.

Also in Italian

The Italian names are testa (head), braccio (arm), gamba (leg), mano (hand), piede (foot), occhio (eye), naso (nose), bocca (mouth) and cuore (heart). The Italian version, Crucipuzzle delle Parti del Corpo, has the same nine words and is just as diagonal: eight of the nine slope across the grid, and the only vertical one is testa.

More word searches to try

Move on to other word searches for young learners:

The attention and vocabulary benefits of puzzles like this one are explained in the article Benefits of word search puzzles for kids.