About this puzzle
Kids usually learn to read the numeral 7 long before they can spell Seven, and this puzzle helps close that gap. Easy covers Zero through Eleven, and the harder levels add Twelve, tens like Twenty and Fifty, and the big ones children love to say out loud: Hundred, Thousand, Million, and Billion. Short words like Six, Two, and Ten give early readers quick wins, while Eleven and Thousand take a bit more hunting.
Each word comes with a short note below the grid, from why Eleven and Twelve don't follow the teen pattern to where the idea of zero came from. Use this numbers word search in a kindergarten or first grade math center, as a warm-up before counting practice, or alongside a worksheet where kids match each word to its numeral.
The 25 words in this puzzle
Every word, with a short note. Handy for teaching the vocabulary before or after solving.
In every version (12)
- Eight
- Eight is the number of legs on a spider and the number of sides on a stop sign. An eight-sided shape is called an octagon.
- Eleven
- Eleven comes from an old English word meaning one left over, as in one more after counting all ten fingers.
- Five
- Five is how many fingers are on one hand, which is why people often count in groups of five using tally marks.
- Four
- Four is the only number in English whose name has the same number of letters as the number itself: F, O, U, R.
- Nine
- Nine is the biggest number written with a single digit. After nine, we need two digits, starting with 10.
- One
- One is the first counting number. Any number multiplied by one stays exactly the same, so 8 times 1 is still 8.
- Seven
- There are seven days in a week and seven colors usually named in the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
- Six
- Six is how many legs every insect has, and how many sides you can count on a honeycomb cell or a hexagon.
- Ten
- Ten is how many fingers most people have, which is likely why we count in tens. Our place value system is built on groups of ten.
- Three
- Three is the number of sides on a triangle. Many favorite stories use threes, like three little pigs and three bears.
- Two
- Two is the smallest even number. Words like twins, twice, and between come from the same old word family as two.
- Zero
- Zero means none at all. Mathematicians in India were among the first to treat zero as a real number with its own rules, more than 1,300 years ago.
Added in Medium and Hard (8)
- Dozen
- A dozen means a group of twelve. Eggs and donuts are often sold by the dozen, and a baker's dozen is thirteen, one extra for good measure.
- Fifty
- Fifty means five tens, or half of one hundred. The United States has fifty states, and there are fifty stars on the American flag.
- Forty
- Forty means four tens, but watch the spelling: there is no U in forty, even though four has one. It is one of the most often misspelled number words.
- Half
- Half means one of two equal parts. Cut a sandwich down the middle and each piece is a half, and half of ten is five.
- Hundred
- One hundred is ten tens. Many schools celebrate the 100th day of school by counting out 100 small objects like buttons or cereal pieces.
- Thirty
- Thirty means three tens. Many months have thirty days, and an old rhyme helps you remember them: thirty days hath September, April, June, and November.
- Twelve
- Twelve comes from an old word meaning two left over after ten. There are twelve months in a year and twelve numbers around a clock face.
- Twenty
- Twenty means two tens. The ending ty, found in thirty, forty, and fifty too, comes from an old word meaning groups of ten.
Added in Hard (5)
- Billion
- A billion is a thousand millions, written with nine zeros. Counting to a billion at one number per second, without ever stopping, would take more than 31 years.
- Million
- A million is a thousand thousands, written as 1,000,000 with six zeros. Counting to a million at one number per second would take more than eleven days without stopping.
- Pair
- A pair is two things that go together, like a pair of socks, shoes, or mittens. Counting by pairs is the same as skip counting by twos.
- Score
- Score is an old word for twenty. Abraham Lincoln began the Gettysburg Address with four score and seven years ago, which means 87 years.
- Thousand
- One thousand is ten hundreds, written as 1,000. If you counted one number every second, reaching a thousand would take about 17 minutes.
A few facts to share while you solve
- Every odd number in English has the letter E somewhere in its name, from one and three all the way up.
- The numerals we use today, 0 through 9, are called Hindu-Arabic numerals because they began in India and spread to Europe through the Arabic-speaking world.
- The Roman numeral system had no symbol for zero, so Romans wrote numbers like 10 as X and 100 as C.
Four versions of this puzzle
Pick a version with the buttons above the grid. Each one has its own grid and answer key, and your progress on each is saved separately in this browser.
| Version | Words | Grid | Directions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | 12 | 9 × 9 | The 12 most familiar words, reading forward across and down. |
| Medium | 20 | 12 × 12 | Twenty words across, down and diagonally. No backwards words. |
| Hard | 25 | 16 × 16 | Every word, in all eight directions including backwards, with look-alike filler letters. |
| Large print | 12 | 10 × 10 | The 12 most familiar words on a small grid with big letters. No backwards words. |
Hard and large print versions
Hard numbers word search: all 25 words on a 16 × 16 grid, hidden forward, backward, up, down and along both diagonals, with filler letters borrowed from the word list. Print it without the word list for an extra challenge. Play the hard version, or see all hard word searches.
Large print numbers word search: the 12 most familiar words on a 10 × 10 grid, printed with big letters and a big word list, and no backwards words. Play the large print version, or see all large print word searches.
Printing this word search
Press Print / PDF above the puzzle. You get a clean one-page sheet with the title, the grid, a word list with tick boxes, and optional name and date lines. The answer key prints on a second page. Prefer a file? Download it as a PDF or an image to print later or drop into a worksheet. Whatever version is showing on screen is the one that prints, and the large print version prints with bigger letters.
How to play online
- Find a word from the list in the grid. Scanning for its first letter is the quickest way.
- Drag across the word from its first letter to its last. On a phone, you can also tap the first letter, then the last.
- Found words get highlighted and crossed off. Stuck? Hint circles the first letter of a word you haven’t found.
Read the full guide to solving word searches, with tips that make big grids much faster.
Questions and answers
Why aren't the teen numbers like Thirteen and Sixteen in this puzzle?
In a word search, a word hidden inside a longer word gets found twice. Sixteen contains Six, Seventeen contains Seven and Ten, and Nineteen contains Nine. To keep every answer clean, the list uses Zero through Twelve, tens like Thirty and Fifty, and words like Dozen and Million, none of which hide inside each other.
What age is this numbers word search for?
It fits kindergarten through second grade, when children are learning to read and spell number words. Pre-readers can join in by matching letters with a grown-up's help, and older kids can race the clock on a harder level.
How can I use this puzzle in a math lesson?
After kids find each word, have them write the matching numeral next to it or draw that many dots. You can also ask them to put the found words in counting order, which turns spelling practice into a quick number sense check.
Is there an answer key for this numbers word search?
Yes. Choose Print / PDF above the puzzle and keep “Add an answer key page” ticked. The key prints on its own page, with every word highlighted. While playing online, Show answers outlines any words you haven’t found yet.
Can I print copies for my class or group?
Yes. Every puzzle on BetterWordSearch is free to print for personal, classroom, library and homeschool use. Print as many copies as you need. To change the words or make several different versions of the grid, use the word search maker.
What changes between Easy, Medium, Hard and Large print?
Easy hides the 12 most familiar words, reading left to right and top to bottom. Medium uses 20 words and adds diagonals. Hard hides all 25 words in every direction, including backwards, with look-alike filler letters. Large print uses the same words as Easy on a small grid and prints with big letters.
