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School Subjects Word Search

A word search dedicated to school subjects, perfect for the start of the school year. Hidden in the grid are eight words to find: math, science, history, geography, art, music, reading and Spanish. It's a light, enjoyable way to talk about the school day and get to know a new class. Print it for free or download it as a PDF: ideal for the first week of term or a getting-to-know-you activity.

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✏️ Create your own word search

Created for free at creapuzzle.com

School Subjects, one by one

The eight words hidden in this grid are subjects children meet in their first years at school, plus two that many classes add early on: reading and a second language. Below is a short note on each one, handy for talking about the school day once the grid is solved.

Math — One of the oldest subjects, born from the need to count animals and harvests thousands of years ago.

Science — Teaches us to ask questions and look for answers through experiments, just like real scientists.

History — Helps us understand the present by studying the past, from ancient civilisations to recent events.

Geography — Literally means "description of the Earth" and was once studied by looking at the stars to find direction.

Art — Has been with humanity forever: the earliest cave paintings are more than 30,000 years old.

Music — Exists in every culture on Earth and activates several parts of the brain at once, boosting memory and focus.

Reading — Opens the door to every other subject and to countless imaginary worlds.

Spanish — One of the most widely spoken languages in the world, useful for travel and making new friends.

Where the names of school subjects come from

Many of the words we use at school have ancient roots. “School” comes from the Greek scholé, which meant leisure: for the Greeks, study was what you did when you were not working. “Mathematics” comes from máthema, “what is learned”; “geography” joins geo, the earth, and graphía, writing, so it means writing about the Earth; “history” comes from historía, which meant inquiry; and “music” remembers the Muses, the Greek goddesses of the arts. Children are often surprised to learn that familiar words have a past.

Even the short names have a story. “Science” comes from the Latin scientia, meaning knowledge, and “art” from ars, the skill of making something well. The grid uses “math”, the American short form, while in British English people say “maths”, the spelling you will find in the School theme of our generator. A school day in most countries mixes subjects like these with physical education, computing and languages, which is why a timetable is such a good starting point for talking about how a week is organised.

Four ways to use the subjects in class

Once the eight words are found, they can go back into the daily life of the classroom through a few simple activities:

  • The dream timetable. Each child fills in an ideal school week, Monday to Friday, choosing how many lessons to give each subject. Comparing timetables is a good way to talk about how time is organised and to discover that tastes differ from one classmate to the next.
  • Guess the subject. Put five objects on a table: a globe, a test tube, a recorder, a paintbrush and a storybook. Pick one at a time and ask the class which subject it belongs to.
  • Favourite subject chart. Each child writes their name on a sticky note and places it under the subject they like best. At the end the poster is a real bar chart, ready for counting, comparing and a few additions.
  • One extra word per subject. For every subject the children add a term that belongs to it, such as addition for math, volcano for science, river for geography or note for music, and the class builds a small illustrated glossary to hang on the wall.

How this grid is built

Eight words are hidden in 12×12 squares: two horizontal, five vertical and one diagonal. GEOGRAPHY, with nine letters, is the longest and runs along the eighth row; ART, with just three letters, is the shortest and sits near the top, in the eighth column. No word crosses another, so every letter belongs to a single word, and MUSIC and READING run down side by side from the top row, in neighbouring columns. MATH is the only diagonal, near the top right-hand corner, sloping down to the right.

Beyond the eight subjects

To stretch the puzzle, open the generator with the School theme, which already has maths, history, science, geography, English, art, music, reading, book and pen. Replace a few words with the ones from your own timetable, such as computing, drama or French, and choose the 13×13 grid when the words are long.

Also in Italian

The Italian names of the subjects are matematica (maths), scienze (science), storia (history), geografia (geography), arte (art), musica (music), italiano (Italian) and inglese (English). The Italian version, Crucipuzzle delle Materie Scolastiche, has the same six subjects as this grid and uses italiano and inglese in place of reading and Spanish.

More word searches to try

Staying with school and language, here are more word searches to solve:

More ideas for back-to-school vocabulary and revision games are in the article School word search puzzles.