Valentine's Day word search

Rules

• The grid hides every Valentine's word shown in the list, each one in a straight line.
• Words on the easy level are written forwards, either along a row or down a column.
• Words on the hard level can also be diagonal or back to front.
• Where two words cross they use the same letter. Each word is there once.
• Select a word by tapping its first letter and then its last.

A Valentine's puzzle for a classroom or a card

The Valentine's list has the symbols everyone expects: heart, cupid and his arrow, roses, tulips, a bouquet of flowers, chocolate, candy and a truffle. It has the paper side of the day too, with card, letter, envelope, poem, ribbon and lace, and the colours pink and crimson. The rest are words about how people treat each other: love, kindness, caring, friend, smile, hugs, cherish, adore. A secret admirer and a dinner by candle light cover the grown-up version of the holiday.

For a class exchange, the easy grid fits well on a half sheet. Print one numbered puzzle per child, fold it into a card, and write the name on the outside; because the words lean towards friendship, nobody receives something they find embarrassing. Teachers can hand out the same number to everyone and go through the solution together on the board.

For adults, the hard grid is a quiet thing to do together. Print one copy, share a pen, and take turns finding a word. The short words are the difficult ones here: love, pink, lace, poem, card and hugs have only four letters each and are easy to miss among the filler, so find valentine, chocolate and envelope first and look for the short ones around them.

Tips

• V is a rare letter in the grid. Valentine, envelope and forever are the long words that contain one, and love is the short one.
• Kisses, hugs and kindness all hinge on rare letters, K and H. Scan for those first.
• Cherish and chocolate both start with CH. Read the third letter before you decide which one you have found.
• Each February day brings a different grid, so a class can do one each morning of Valentine's week.
• Print in large print for the youngest children; the grid keeps to one page.

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.