New Year word search

Rules

• All the New Year words under the grid are somewhere in it, written in a straight line.
• Easy level: words go across or down, never backwards.
• Hard level: words go across, down or diagonally, forwards or backwards.
• Words can overlap by one letter, and you will not find the same word in two places.
• To mark a word on a phone, tap where it starts and where it ends.

Something to do while waiting for midnight

New Year has fewer objects than Christmas, so this list leans on what happens rather than what is on the shelf. There is the party itself: balloon, streamer, banner, confetti, glitter, noisemaker, music and dancing. There is the moment: the clock, the countdown, the chime at twelve, midnight, fireworks, a sparkler, cheers and a toast. And there is what people think about on the first of January: a resolution, goals, wishes, hopes, memories of the old year and the future, with a calendar turning from december to january.

The hours between dinner and midnight are long for children who have been allowed to stay up. Print a few numbered grids before the guests arrive and bring one out each hour as part of the countdown. The easy level is enough for the younger ones; the hard level, with its backward and diagonal words, will last an older child a good while.

Back at school, the puzzle is a soft start to the term. After the grid is done, ask each pupil to choose one of the words, perhaps goals, fresh or begin, and write their own resolution around it. The list has no drinks in it and nothing that assumes a late night, so it is suitable for any age.

Tips

• Countdown, fireworks, noisemaker and resolution are the long ones; place them first and the grid opens up.
• The W of fireworks, wishes, twelve and countdown is a helpful rare letter.
• Sparkler and streamer share several letters, as do december and celebrate. Follow the whole line before you mark.
• Each puzzle number is a different grid, so you can print one for every hour of the evening.
• Switch on the timer under the puzzle if you want to race the clock in the last minutes of the year.

How these puzzles are made and checked

A separate scan reads the finished grid from every cell in all eight directions. Every listed word must be found exactly once, at the stored position, and the grid must not spell a word from our deny list outside the listed words.

The puzzle of the day is chosen by the date on your device: puzzle 1 was the puzzle for 1 January 2026, and the number goes up by one each day. Easy: 366 puzzles, so the same puzzle comes round again after 366 days. Hard: 366 puzzles, so the same puzzle comes round again after 366 days. Every number stays open in the archive control above the grid. More detail is on the page how the puzzles are made and checked.