Okay, so I got really into this solar eclipse thing. You know, the big one that everyone was talking about? I thought it would be cool to make a word search puzzle about it. It sounded fun, and I wanted to see if I could actually do it.
First, I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. I started by brainstorming all the words I could think of that had something to do with solar eclipses. Words like “sun,” “moon,” “shadow,” “corona” – you get the idea. I wrote them all down, trying to come up with as many as possible.
Then, I drew a big square grid on another piece of paper. This was going to be the base for my puzzle. I decided to make it pretty big, so there was plenty of room for all the words.
Next, I started placing the words into the grid. This was the trickiest part. I had to make sure the words fit and that they overlapped in a way that made sense. Some words I placed horizontally, some vertically, and a few diagonally. I kept erasing and rewriting until it all looked good.
After I placed all the words, I filled in the rest of the grid with random letters. I tried to make it look challenging but not impossible. It took a while, but I finally finished it.
The Answer Key Saga
Of course, I needed an answer key. So, I carefully circled all the words in the puzzle and noted their exact positions. Then I made a clean copy of the grid and the word list for the puzzle itself.
- SUN – Row 3, Column 5-7
- MOON – Row 8, Column 1-4
- SHADOW – Row 5, Column 10-15 (reverse)
- CORONA – Row 1, Column 2-7 (diagonal)
- ECLIPSE – Row 10, Column 3-9
- TOTALITY – Row 7, Column 8-15 (diagonal, reverse)
- PARTIAL – Row 2, Column 9-15
- PATH – Row 12, Column 1-4
- ORBIT – Row 4, Column 3-7
- UMBRA – Row 9, Column 5-9
- PENUMBRA – Row 6, Column 1-8
- SOLAR – Row 15, Column 11-15
- LUNAR – Row 14, Column 1-5
- STARS – Row 11, Column 8-12
- DARKNESS – Row 13, Column 4-11 (reverse)
I double-checked everything to make sure it was all correct. Then I felt pretty proud of myself. I actually made a whole word search puzzle and an answer key! It was a fun little project, and I learned a lot about eclipses along the way. Maybe I’ll make another one for the next big eclipse!