Halloween word search

Ghosts, witches and a full moon: this theme gathers the spooky side of October. Monsters from old stories (vampire, werewolf, mummy, zombie, goblin) share the grid with the fun of the night itself: costumes and masks, trick or treat, candy corn, caramel apples, hayrides and a carved jack-o'-lantern on the porch. Nothing here is gory; it is a puzzle for the whole family.

Halloween is short for All Hallows' Eve, the evening before All Saints' Day on November 1. The first jack-o'-lanterns were carved in Ireland and Scotland from turnips rather than pumpkins. When the custom crossed the Atlantic, the larger American pumpkin, which is much easier to carve, took over.

In class, a Halloween word search is a calm activity for a day when nobody wants to sit still, and at home it makes a good warm-up while you wait for the trick-or-treaters. After the puzzle, children can pick a word and draw the costume it inspires.

Play tip: hyphens and apostrophes are left out of the grid, so look for JACKOLANTERN as one line of 12 letters, and for TRICKORTREAT, also 12. Words that long only fit on hard and expert; on easy, every word has eight letters or fewer.