Printable puzzles for 9 to 12 year olds

Plenty of 9 to 12 year olds still love a good puzzle book, but they can tell straight away when a page was made for younger children. What makes a page satisfying at this age is a real challenge that can still be finished in one sitting. Here’s what that looks like for the most popular kinds of puzzle, with real pages from our books.

Word searches that fight back

A word search for older children needs more than a bigger grid. Three things make it properly hard:

• Words in every direction, including backwards and diagonally upwards.
• More words, with some of them long enough to cross each other.
• Filler letters that don’t give words away. Ours use few vowels, so they rarely spell words by accident.

Our 9+ word searches use a 12 × 12 grid with twelve words, some of them hidden backwards.

Mazes with real dead ends

A maze for a young child has a few turns and a clear route. For older children, the interest is in the dead ends: long corridors that almost reach the exit and then stop. Larger grids help, but so does a maze where the right route isn’t the obvious one. Every maze we make has exactly one route from start to finish, checked automatically.

Crosswords

Crosswords with picture clues work from about six or seven, and they get more satisfying as the number of words grows, because more words means more letters shared between answers, and every solved word helps with the next. Picture clues keep it fair for children who are still building vocabulary; more words and a bigger grid keep it challenging.

Codes and ciphers

Secret codes are a favorite at this age, especially ones they can use to write their own messages afterwards. Simple number codes (A = 1, B = 2) are easy to crack; a mirror alphabet (A = Z, B = Y) takes a little more thought. A good code page ends with space to write a secret message of their own.

Logic puzzles

Picture sudoku is a friendly way into logic puzzles: each picture appears once in every row, column and box. The fewer pictures given at the start, the more reasoning it takes. At 9+ we use a 6 × 6 grid with fewer pictures given than for younger children, and every puzzle has exactly one answer.

Logic grids, word ladders and riddles

Three kinds of page are made just for this age in our books:

• Logic grids. Three children, three pets, three favorite colors, and a handful of clues like “The child with the cat does not like red best.” Every grid has exactly one answer, and every clue is needed to find it.
• Word ladders. Climb from COLD to WARM by changing one letter at a time, with a small clue for each step.
• Riddles, with the answers printed upside down at the bottom of the page, for when nobody can wait.

Keeping it fun

• Let them choose. Put out a few different pages and let them pick. Choice matters more to older children than to younger ones.
• Make it a race, sometimes. Two copies of the same word search and a timer turn a quiet page into a game.
• Swap roles. Once they’ve solved a code, ask them to write one for you. Once they’ve done a maze, ask them to draw one.
• Don’t rescue too fast. Being stuck for a minute is part of the fun. Offer a hint only when they ask.
• Easier is fine too. On a tired day, an easier page they can finish is better than a hard one they give up on.

Free pages to print

Our free sample pages for ages 9 to 12 include a word search with backwards words, a large maze, a crossword and a picture sudoku.

When you make a Pencil Otter book for a child aged 9 to 12, every puzzle is set at this level, with their name hidden in the word search and the crossword.