Entry: The answer to a clue that solvers write into the crossword puzzle. Entries that are part of a theme are called — wait for it — theme entries. Fun fact: In a typical American-style crossword, an entry must have at least three letters.
We’ve even included some tips and encouragement from the puzzle pros to help keep you motivated, like our very funny friend, Megan Amram, a writer for television shows like “The Simpsons” and “The Good Place.” Ms. Amram is a devoted solver and has also made a puzzle that ran in The New York Times.Once you understand the theme and can guess what the other theme entries might be, you will have a leg up on solving the rest of the puzzle. Think of it as the frame of a house; the crossword’s theme is the basis on which the rest of the puzzle is built. If you’ve ever picked up a crossword puzzle and said to yourself, “I am not smart enough” or “I don’t have a big enough vocabulary for this,” please allow us to let you in on a little secret: Occasionally, you will see abbreviations in the clues that have nothing to do with abbreviations in the answers. For reasons of succinctness, some words in clues are nearly always abbreviated, like \”U.S.\” for United States, \”U.N.\” for United Nations, \”N.F.L.\” for National Football League, or \”V.I.P.\” for very important person.As we said, there may be a lot of forehead slapping as you get into the late week puzzles, but hang in there. We promise you’ll start to enjoy the lengths to which the puzzle makers and editors go to twist your brain.
What was the first crossword word?
Today in 1913, pre-WWI, Arthur Wynne ran the first crossword puzzle of all time in the New York World; he, an editor there, invented the puzzle himself and called it “FUN’s Word-Cross Puzzle.” (A few weeks later, a typographical error rendered the puzzle’s title “Cross-Word,” and the name stuck.)
We’re big fans of the brain here, especially its incredible work ethic. But even brains get tired, so if you are stuck at some point in the puzzle, one of the best things you can do is put it down and take a break from it for a while.Some crosswords contain a set of entries that all have something in common. Puzzle makers have a knack for spotting oddities in our language, and when they can put enough of the same kind of oddity together, they have developed a theme set. As the solver, you not only get to do the crossword puzzle, you also get to piece together the theme.
Constructor: The person who creates the crossword puzzle. The constructor develops the theme if it’s a themed puzzle, fills the puzzle with interlocking words or phrases and writes the clues. In other countries, the constructor might be called a compiler or setter.
Let’s say you see a clue that reads “Do-it-yourselfer’s activity,” and the allotted space you are given for the answer is eight squares. Maybe you guessed right off the bat (or you used those crossings!) that the answer is HOME REPAIR. But HOME REPAIR would need 10 squares.
What is the most famous NYT crossword?
Perhaps the most famous is the November 5, 1996, puzzle by Jeremiah Farrell, published on the day of the U.S. presidential election, which has been featured in the movie Wordplay and the book The Crossword Obsession by Coral Amende, as well as discussed by Peter Jennings on ABC News, featured on CNN, and elsewhere.
Give your new knowledge a try with this mini. Some clues and answers will be present tense, some will be past tense. Just remember to make sure that the tenses of each clue and its answer match. We won’t spoil the answer, but as an example, note that the clue for 1-Across is in present tense and the clue for 5-Across is in past tense. Read the clues carefully!There is so much more to a crossword puzzle than just a list of clues and space for you to write in the answers. We want you to be able to wring every drop of enjoyment out of your puzzle. That’s one reason you should know about crossword themes. A crossword theme is like bonus content; it is an extra puzzle-within-the-puzzle for you to solve.
Language is a living, evolving thing, and the entries in the crossword tend to reflect that. Therein lies a challenge: Older solvers have to keep up with our changing language and younger solvers have to learn words that might have fallen out of favor long before they were born.
A clue that is in quotes can be the title of a song, a movie or a book. But it can also mean something else: A clue in quotes that is something someone might say out loud has an answer that is a synonym for that verbalization. Here are a few examples of clues with possible answers:
Kudos to you for hanging in there with us! If you’ve been practicing, you should be able to tackle a midweek puzzle at least, if not a later-in-the-week puzzle. All it takes is dedication to solving and learning. Oh, and a willingness to have fun. Because as we said, crosswords are a game, and games are meant to be fun.
If a clue is in a certain tense (such as past tense), then the answer has to be in that tense as well. This is an easy rule to start with that will immediately improve your solving. For example, if you see the past tense clue “Adored” in a puzzle, the answer has to be past tense. So if the answer is a form of the word “love,” the answer would not be LOVE, LOVES or LOVING. It would be LOVED, because that’s the past tense form. A rebus element can be a letter, number or symbol that represents a word, but in many crosswords, the rebus will be a word or group of letters that need to be written inside a single square. Many solvers ask if they are supposed to be warned that a rebus exists in a puzzle, and the answer is no, that’s part of the fun of solving. It’s also frustrating if you don’t figure out what’s going on. (That’s also why rebuses are generally reserved for Thursday and Sunday puzzles, says Joel Fagliano, the digital puzzles editor.) The Monday New York Times Crosswords are the easiest, and the puzzles get harder as the week goes on. Solve as many of the Mondays as you can before pushing yourself to Tuesday puzzles. You can thank us later. I’m not sure how this works, but your brain will continue working on the clue in the background while you go about your day. When you come back to it, you might be surprised at the “Aha!” moment you experience when you thought you didn’t know the answer. But we weren’t kidding you. There is a big difference between a Monday puzzle clue and a Saturday puzzle one. Late-week clues might require more specialized knowledge about these delicious treats.
Mini crossword: A 5×5 crossword offered by The New York Times. For comparison, the size of a Times daily crossword is 15×15 and the Sunday crossword is 21×21.
This is probably a beginning solver’s most common mistake.You know what it’s like: You have some downtime on a Saturday and you look around for something to pass the time. Your officemate keeps bragging about his ability to finish The New York Times Crossword. You hate your officemate.
A tantalizing glimpse at the late week wordplay you can look forward to when you push past the Mondays: If the entry was in a deviously tricky late-week puzzle, you might see the clue: “What this is in Spain.”
In general, solvers will see some sort of signal that an entry is an abbreviation, an initialism or an acronym, although that signal may vary.Some of the signals you see might include:
Heteronyms are two or more words that are spelled identically but have different pronunciations and meanings, like “minute” (MIN-it), which is a unit of time, and “minute” (my-NOOT), which might mean tiny.
From being duped by magic tricks to pondering those brain-twisting crossword clues, why do humans so love being fooled? Is it the rush of the “Aha!” moment, when their expectations are defied?
Occasionally, you will see abbreviations in the clues that have nothing to do with abbreviations in the answers. For reasons of succinctness, some words in clues are nearly always abbreviated, like “U.S.” for United States, “U.N.” for United Nations, “N.F.L.” for National Football League, or “V.I.P.” for very important person.Of course, some solvers say simply that figuring out a really tricky clue makes them feel smart. And there is nothing wrong with that, especially when you’re learning how to decipher them.When the crossword constructor and the editors are feeling particularly diabolical, you might see an innocent-looking clue like this for a three letter entry:Part of the fun is determining where in the entry the rebus belongs. You’ll really need to work the crossings to figure that out. If you are solving in print, of course, filling in the rebus will simply be a matter of writing small.Sneaky? Maybe. But we promise you’ll learn to love this, and the more you practice solving, the easier it will be to spot these delicious opportunities to play with words and language.
Which crossword is easiest?
Mondays have the most straightforward clues and Saturday clues are the hardest, or involve the most wordplay. Contrary to popular belief, the Sunday puzzles are midweek difficulty, not the hardest. They’re just bigger. A typical Monday clue will be very straightforward and drive you almost directly to the answer.
The Saturday crossword is actually the hardest puzzle of the week. Mondays have the most straightforward clues and Saturday clues are the hardest, or involve the most wordplay. Contrary to popular belief, the Sunday puzzles are midweek difficulty, not the hardest. They’re just bigger.Crosswords are ultimately learning tools, whether you’re learning some trivia or an interesting new word or phrase. When you look something up, you’re learning so you’ll know it for next time.
They can use puns, anagrams, hidden words, common elements, letters added to familiar phrases to make new phrases, and much more. Some puzzle themes have visual themes. Be on the lookout for these, because they can be amazing.
Then you look at the entry that crosses the first letter of CAT and the clue is “Honest ___ (presidential moniker).” The answer to that one is ABE, so CAT must be wrong.Solving a New York Times crossword is not easy, but it should be satisfying. Even if you only get a few answers the first few times, keep on solving. It just gets easier – and better – from there.
Let’s take a closer look at the clue: The word “Brave” has a capital B because it is at the beginning of the clue, but that is not the only reason it’s capitalized. It has a capital B because it also happens to be the name of a professional baseball player, an Atlanta Brave. The puzzle maker and the editors put it at the beginning of the clue to capitalize on (sorry), or take advantage of, the capital letter.
If there is a non-English word or phrase in the crossword, the clue will signal it by either including a word or phrase in the same language, or by connecting the answer to a place where that language is spoken or a person who might speak it. For the most part, foreign words or phrases included in puzzles they are very common words that most people will know, providing they paid attention in their high school language classes.An example of this would be the clue, “Partner of live” for which the answer would be LEARN, because the popular phrase is “Live and learn.” Occasionally, the word “and” is not needed as a separator, as in the clue “Partner of neither,” for the answer NOR, because “neither” and “nor” are partnered in sentences.
But how are you supposed to win? How are you supposed to beat your braggart of an officemate in a solving race? The key is to learn some easy-to-remember ways to read those devilish crossword clues.
You know things your friend doesn’t know, and he or she knows things that you don’t know. That’s roughly twice as much stuff that you can solve, and it’s a good excuse to spend time together. In general, solvers will see some sort of signal that an entry is an abbreviation, an initialism or an acronym, although that signal may vary. Some of the signals you see might include: In this puzzle, the theme entries were clued to make you think. They describe the punny phrase, not the one it’s based on, so it’s up to you to figure that out. Here’s how this puzzled was clued:
You can absolutely learn to do that. We’re here to let you in on some of the rules that most clues follow, and to teach you how to read those clues so that they become easier to solve. It would be impossible to cover every instance of clueing, but we can get you up and running.
The number of types of themes you might see in crosswords is nearly infinite, so we can’t describe them here. But most commonly they involve playing with words.
Symmetry: Standard crosswords have 180 degree rotational symmetry, which means that if you turn a crossword puzzle upside down, the black and white squares will still be in the same place.The Times has even run puzzles where solvers had to write the theme outside the grid. Talk about thinking outside the box! If you’re feeling daring, you can try one of those here.
In both cases, the answer would be BOOK. But the first would lead to the noun BOOK, that bound object with pages, while the second clue is for the verb BOOK, because “Make reservations” is a verb clue.
If you’re just getting started, make your life easy and solve as many Monday puzzles as you can. Eventually, you’ll be ready for more of a challenge, and that’s when you move on to the Tuesday puzzles.How about a short quiz to help you figure this out? Here are some particularly sneaky heteronym examples and the number of letters in their answers. We’d like you to guess those answers. You might want to spend some time staring at them until the heteronym reveals itself.
Most solvers don’t fill in a theme entry without first solving some of the crossings, so don’t worry if you don’t know them right off the bat. But do notice that these particular entries cover a range of topics: Topography, pop culture, sports and, well, a pun about book covers. There’s something for nearly everyone.
For example, the Spanish word ESTA, which means “this” or “it is,” might be clued early in the week as “It is, en español.” Don’t worry, the answer is in your brain somewhere. And remember: If you need to, take a break and come back to the puzzle. And work those crossings.
To keep things fair between constructor, editor and solver, most crossword clues follow certain predictable “rules.” We’re going to let you in on some of those rules and, if you practice using the Minis that are included in this guide, you will get a lot further in your solving.
There is so much wonderful variety in New York Times crossword themes. These examples are just to get you started, but once you dive in and start solving, prepare to be surprised by the incredible creativity of the puzzle makers.
You might see clues that say “See 17-Across,” which, on the surface, is not very helpful. But it’s an indicator that the answers to the clue you are looking at and the one at 17-Across are somehow related. All you have to do is follow the instructions.
What is seen in spring?
Plants begin to grow and flowers to bloom. Animals awaken from hibernation. Babies – not just human babies – are often born in spring. In some parts of the world, spring brings rain that falls for hours on end, facilitating the growth of different plant life.
You already know more than you think you do. To borrow a sports term, a puzzle or individual clue on topics that you know well is said to be “in your wheelhouse.” You’ll be able to find at least a few entries in each puzzle that you know.And don’t worry if you make a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes. That’s what erasers and the backspace key are for. It even happens to advanced solvers, so don’t let it get you down if you don’t know something or need to change an answer. Tip: If you are struggling with an answer that has a plural clue, you can make yourself feel like you’ve at least got a grip on it by dropping the letter “S” in at the end. Then, come back when you have enough letters filled in from the crossings to solve the rest of the entry. Of course, some solvers may tell you that looking up the answer to a clue is “cheating,” but to us, that way lies frustration and a path to giving up. And that’s no fun. Crosswords are a game, and games are supposed to be fun.Would you like to improve your mental flexibility, learn a few interesting things every day and establish bragging rights among your friends? Solving crossword puzzles is like mental yoga — both challenging and relaxing at the same time. Plus, it’s fun, especially if you appreciate words and wordplay as much as I do. I believe that with patience and practice anyone can learn to solve crosswords. Once you master a few basic strategies, you’ll find that puzzle-solving is not only possible, but highly addictive. So let’s get solving!Tip: The New York Times Crossword speaks to all ages. It pays to learn both older and more modern slang and vernacular. And you will certainly learn it if you solve the crossword, dawg.
So let your mind wander and try to think of possible partners for the word in the clue. If you need to come up with an answer for the clue “Partner of sciences,” for example, the answer would be either “Sciences and ___” or “___ and sciences.” In this case, the answer is ARTS, for “arts and sciences.”
So, start to consider the theme of the puzzle. If you tighten your belt and squeeze multiple letters into a single square, you’ll end up with the word “air” in one square. This puzzle maker made the word AIR a rebus element in eight squares, where the rebus worked for both the Across and Down clues.
Some themes change part of a familiar word or phrase to make a pun. Here’s one that changes an ‘S’ to an ‘SH’ at the start of the second word of a familiar phrase to turn it into something completely different: At 17-Across, for example, BEST SELLER becomes BEST SHELLER. Three more long Across answers work similarly.Themes can be placed anywhere in the crossword grid, depending on the creativity of the puzzle constructor. But most commonly it will be in the longest Across and Down entries.
Deb Amlen is the columnist and editor of Wordplay, the crossword column of The New York Times. She believes that, with enough peer pressure, anyone can learn to solve crosswords and enjoy them.
Clue: A crossword clue is a hint that the solver must decipher to find the answer that is then entered into the puzzle grid. Clues are not necessarily dictionary definitions; they can involve puns, anagrams and other types of wordplay.Pick out the clues that are meant to be the easiest and tackle them first. See anything you definitely know? Those are your ‘gimmes.’ Are there any fill-in-the-blanks clues? Those are usually the easiest.Your wheelhouse might be stuffed with sports trivia. Your BFF’s wheelhouse might be crammed to the rafters with a deep knowledge of opera. Vive la différence, right?First, decide how you want to solve: Are you a print-only person? Do you enjoy the extra help that comes from playing on the web or on-the-go with the app? If you subscribe, you get access to all the daily puzzles and the archive. And once you log in, you can save your progress across all the digital platforms.
What is the clue of spring?
SPRING Crossword ClueAnswerLettersLEAP4COIL4JUMP4GUSH4
Word count: The word count is the number of answers in a crossword. In a New York Times crossword, a themed 15×15 square puzzle typically has no more than 78 answers. A 15×15 themeless puzzle has a maximum word count of 72 answers. A 21×21 Sunday puzzle usually has no more than 140 answers. Some good news about crossword puzzles: A clue and answer pairing will always be fair, even if it takes solvers a while to see it. And who doesn’t love being set up to win, even if it’s after a mental tug-of-war? Tip: A question mark at the end of a clue means that it should not be taken at face value. The answer is likely to be a pun, a misdirection, or some other type of wordplay. Ask yourself if the words in the clues might have different meanings from the ones you think they do.
An answer’s part of speech must match the clue’s part of speech. If a clue is primarily a noun, the answer will be a noun. If the clue is primarily a verb, the answer must be a verb. And so on.
Ready to try it? Will Shortz has selected 11 of his favorite Monday puzzles from our archive for you, so you can get some practice. Don’t worry: You’ve got this. Interlock: The crossing of entries inside the grid. An American-style crossword has “all-over interlock,” which means that no part of the grid can be completely cut off by the black squares. In theory, a solver should be able to solve from any section of a puzzle to another without having to stop. Crossing: The intersection between an Across entry and a Down one. Crosswords are intended to play fair with solvers, so a difficult or obscure entry will ideally cross a more “gettable” one.The answer to all of these clues is the same: “OREO.” Those delicious sandwich cookies are so popular in crossword puzzles that they’ve been dubbed by some as the “official” cookie of the crossword.
Now imagine opening your Sunday New York Times Magazine to the crossword and seeing a museum come to life. Here’s a Sunday puzzle from 2009 that celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City:
People who have not yet learned to enjoy The New York Times Crossword tend to believe that it is a stodgy pursuit for older people, but the truth is, there are both modern and retro references in almost every puzzle. So while you might see the words MASHER (slang for a man who makes often unwelcome advances to women) and MOOLA (slang for money), you will also see BAE (slang for a boyfriend or girlfriend) and BROMANCE (slang for a close, platonic friendship between two men).The entries BOULDER DAM, ROCK LOBSTER, PEBBLE BEACH and DUST JACKET all involve some sort of stone — and the size of the stone (BOULDER → ROCK → PEBBLE → DUST) gets smaller as you go from the top of the grid to the bottom. Below is how these answers were clued in this puzzle. The theme clues are pretty straightforward — fittingly for a Monday puzzle — although the clue for DUST JACKET is playing with us. Even so, it’s not that hard, especially if you work the crossings.
Imagine how much that unique facet of language enthralls our puzzle makers and editors. And they use it to their advantage.This might not seem completely fair, but if you’ve been learning the tricks to understanding the clues in the rest of this guide, it’s well within the bounds of fairness. You just have to learn to think like a constructor.
Grid: The diagram of black and white squares that contains the entries. Most daily puzzles are 15 squares by 15 squares and most Sunday puzzles are 21 squares by 21 squares.Let’s look at an example of why it pays to work those crossings. You might not see this in a Monday puzzle, but say the clue is “Black Halloween animal,” and you have confidently written in “CAT.”
Conversely, you can also work your way through an answer that you can’t get completely by solving the crossings. Once you have enough letters filled in, take your best guess based on the pattern of letters you’ve uncovered.But don’t limit yourself. Try to master the skills you need to get started, and then push yourself to go further into the week. That’s where all of that devious, delicious wordplay is tucked into the clues, and where the fun in solving crosswords lies.
Once you’ve learned some of the shorter answers and how they are clued, you can almost be sure you’ll see them again. The brain works in weird and wonderful ways, and when you start solving crosswords consistently, you will feel really good when you can say, “Hey, I know that one!”
When you start a puzzle, get comfortable, pour yourself a glass of your favorite beverage — it’s important to stay hydrated — and then scan the clue list before solving.
What makes the spring?
Springs occur when water pressure causes a natural flow of groundwater onto the earth’s surface. As rainwater enters or “recharges” the aquifer, pressure is placed on the water already present.
These are the forehead slappers of crossword clues. The puzzle maker and the editor are playing around with words and phrases in a clue like this, so free your mind up and think about other ways the words in the clues might be used. Question everything.
Solvers will often see a “?” in clues that are part of a crossword theme involving wordplay, but any clue involving wordplay could conceivably have a “?” A clue might receive a “?” depending on on how “stretchy” it is — that is, how far a clue is from being factually true. It may also depend on which day of the week the clue appears: Early week puzzles might get a “?” to help you, whereas later week clues might not.
Take the word BOOK, for example. BOOK can be both a noun and a verb, so you may see a noun clue or a verb clue for the word. The answer will be the same, but how you get there will be very different. In this puzzle, the black squares imitate the spiral shape of the halls of the Guggenheim Museum, and works of art that hang in the museum can be found throughout the puzzle by artist name, along with the name of the museum and other bonus theme content. “Grab the low-hanging fruit first. That’s what we call ‘gimmes,’” said Amlen. “Go fill in your ‘gimmes’ because there’s nothing like writing in the grid to really increase your confidence. And if your confidence increases, your abilities sometimes increase along with it.”
What is the most famous crossword puzzles?
The Times Crossword The Times Crossword is the world’s most famous crossword.
“Anything that’s 3 or 4 letters and vowel-heavy is going to be pretty common, so ERIE is a crossword writer’s favorite lake and IOWA and OHIO our favorite states,” he said. “Every grid needs some of these words to keep things together, but we also try to work in snazzier entries as well.”
The New York Times crossword puzzles increase in difficulty as the week goes on, with the hardest puzzle appearing on Saturdays. If you’re just getting started, begin with the easiest ones.
But Deb Amlen, columnist and editor of Wordplay at The New York Times who wrote the official guide to solving The New York Times crossword puzzle, and Matt Gaffney, a professional crossword puzzle constructor who has written over 4,000 puzzles for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and others, don’t want you miss out on the fun.“Practice, practice, practice, like everything else,” Gaffney said. “Something like 12% of crosswords are comprised of the 250 most common grid entries, so if you nail those 250 down you’ve got about one eighth of most grids figured out.”
Crossword puzzles can be intimidating if you don’t do them regularly. With all of those blank squares, it might even feel like you’re sitting down to take the SAT or a spelling test. “It’s not the SAT. You’re allowed to put the puzzle down if you get frustrated,” said Amlen. “The fascinating thing to me is that your brain continues working on it in the background. When you come back to it, you might be able to fill in more than you thought you could.” “If you want to build up your skill set, I would start with the Monday puzzles and get confident with that before you then push to the Tuesdays and Wednesdays,” said Amlen.“If you’re solving digitally, you’ll have the option of checking just one entry or even a single letter if you’re stuck; frequently, that one letter or word can break open the entire grid,” said Gaffney. “So don’t throw the puzzle aside when you hit a wall — just peek at a letter or word you really want and see if that doesn’t do the trick. Next time, maybe you won’t need the cheat.”
If you’re stuck on a word that goes across, Amlen suggests try filling in more words that go down to add more letters to it, Wheel of Fortune-style. The inverse is true with a word that goes across — answering more words that go down will add letters to it.
According to Amlen, a “veiled capital” is when the first word of a clue is a proper noun — it would be capitalized anyway since it’s the first word, so it’s not always clear that it could be referring to something else. For example, a clue that began with “Outback” could be referencing the Australian outback or the restaurant chain Outback.
If you know the answers to any of the clues right away, write those in first. Amlen says fill in the blank clues tend to be the easiest because the brain loves filling in the missing information.So if you’re looking for a throwback—or just a simple and fun task—in these precedented times, try solving that very first crossword puzzle that ran in the New York World today 108 years ago: As the omicron variant rages through my body this week, I’m enjoying taking my mind of my concerns by solving crossword puzzles. As it turns out, that’s a timeless (or rather, somewhat time-sensitive but historically precedented) pursuit: crossword puzzles became popularized during WWI, when headlines grew darker and darker and newspapers were desperate to point their readers to a spot of joy. As Adrienne Raphel reported in Thinking Inside The Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can’t Live Without Them, despite readers obviously loving crossword puzzles, for decades one institution disdained them: The New York Times. For a few decades, the Times was the only major metropolitan newspaper in America without a crossword puzzle, and through the 20’s and 30’s, the paper ran op-eds decrying crosswords as a passing lowbrow craze. But in 1942—two months after Pearl Harbor—the Times gave in and added a crossword section, to “keep readers sane with the rest of the news so bleak [and] provide readers something to occupy time during coming blackout days.”Today in 1913, pre-WWI, Arthur Wynne ran the first crossword puzzle of all time in the New York World; he, an editor there, invented the puzzle himself and called it “FUN’s Word-Cross Puzzle.” (A few weeks later, a typographical error rendered the puzzle’s title “Cross-Word,” and the name stuck.) Starting there, crossword puzzles became more and more popular; the World started running front-page banners pointing readers to the puzzle, and the crossword became a selling point.Tulips, first cultivated in the Netherlands, are another favorite springtime flower. There are more than 150 species of tulips and over 3,000 varieties. These colorful flowers typically bloom for only 3-5 days.With its warmer weather, blooming flowers and trees, and new birth, spring is an exciting time. Celebrate spring! Color this page with the bright colors of springtime.
Test your students’ knowledge of springtime vocabulary with this unique spiral puzzle. Each clue, when filled in correctly, will result in one long chain of words. Each correct answer will fill in the boxes from its start number to the box just before the next word’s start number. Spring is a time of new birth. Trees and flowers are in bloom. Many mammals are giving birth to their babies. Butterflies are emerging from their chrysalises. Spring officially begins with the spring equinox on March 20th or 21st. Equinox comes from two Latin words, aequus meaning equal and nox meaning night. The spring equinox is one of only two days of the year (the other is in the fall) in which the sun shines directly on the equator, making the length of day and night basically equal.Spend some time discussing and researching the spring phrases that capture your students’ interest. For example, why do we have Daylight Savings Time? What is the history of April Fool’s Day?
Butterflies are a sure sign of spring. They can’t regulate their own body temperature or fly when they’re cold. The ideal air temperature for butterflies is 85-100 degrees (F). Learn some fun facts about butterflies, then, color the coloring page.
Daffodils, first cultivated in ancient Rome, are one of the first flowers to bloom in the spring. Use a lovely coloring activity to commemorate the occasion and its relation to changing seasons.
Do crossword puzzles help?
In fact, 37% of those doing crossword puzzles did show at least a two-point improvement. This means that crossword puzzles can improve thinking and memory almost as much as an FDA-approved memory-enhancing medication.
How much do your students remember about the spring-themed vocabulary they’ve been practicing? Let them show what they know with this spring challenge worksheet. For each description, students should choose the correct answer from the multiple choice options.When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site.Spring got its name as a reference to flowers springing from the ground. Before it became known as spring, the season was referred to as Lent or Lenten.
Young students can hone their alphabetizing skills with these spring-themed words. They should write each word from the word bank in correct alphabetical order. Students can also practice their handwriting skills by writing each word as neatly as possible.
Have some rainy day fun with Spring Crossword. Whether you have a handful of minutes while spring cleaning, or hours before the clouds part, launch your web browser and play online for free on any of your devices – no download, sign-in, or app store visits required. Get into the swing with Spring Crossword!
DISCLAIMER: The games on this website are using PLAY (fake) money. No payouts will be awarded, there are no “winnings”, as all games represented by 247 Games LLC are free to play. Play strictly for fun.
What is the most used word in crossword puzzles?
9 Crossword Puzzle Hacks You Should Know, According to New York Times Puzzle Creators“ERA” is the most common entry in crosswords, as well as “ARE,” “AREA,” and “ORE.”If a clue is in plural, the word will probably end in “S.”“Cheating” by checking a letter or word is encouraged if you’re stuck.
The puzzle is created by various freelance constructors and has been edited by Will Shortz since 1993. The crosswords are designed to increase in difficulty throughout the week, with the easiest puzzle on Monday and the most difficult on Saturday. The larger Sunday crossword, which appears in The New York Times Magazine, is an icon in American culture; it is typically intended to be as difficult as a Thursday puzzle. The standard daily crossword is 15 by 15 squares, while the Sunday crossword measures 21 by 21 squares.
Which ny Times crossword is hardest?
Saturday crossword The Saturday crossword is actually the hardest puzzle of the week. Mondays have the most straightforward clues and Saturday clues are the hardest, or involve the most wordplay. Contrary to popular belief, the Sunday puzzles are midweek difficulty, not the hardest. They’re just bigger.
The puzzle’s popularity grew over the years, until it came to be considered the most prestigious of the widely circulated U.S. crosswords. Many celebrities and public figures have publicly proclaimed their liking for the puzzle, including opera singer Beverly Sills, author Norman Mailer, baseball pitcher Mike Mussina, former President Bill Clinton, conductor Leonard Bernstein, TV host Jon Stewart, and music duo the Indigo Girls.The New York Times crossword puzzle is a daily American-style crossword puzzle published in The New York Times, online on the newspaper’s website, syndicated to more than 300 other newspapers and journals, and on mobile apps.
As well as a second word puzzle on Sundays, the Times publishes a KenKen numbers puzzle (a variant of the popular sudoku logic puzzles) each day of the week. The KenKen and second Sunday puzzles are available online at the New York Times crosswords and games page, as are “SET!” logic puzzles, a word search variant called “Spelling Bee” in which the solver uses a hexagonal diagram of letters to spell words of four or more letters in length, and a monthly bonus crossword with a theme relating to the month. The Times Online also publishes a daily “mini” crossword by Joel Fagliano, which is 5×5 Sunday through Friday and 7×7 on Saturdays and is significantly easier than the traditional daily puzzle. Other “mini” and larger 11×11 “midi” puzzles are sometimes offered as bonuses.
The Times puzzles have been collected in hundreds of books by various publishers, most notably Random House and St. Martin’s Press, the current publisher of the series. In addition to appearing in the printed newspaper, the puzzles also appear online on the paper’s website, where they require a separate subscription to access. In 2007, Majesco Entertainment released The New York Times Crosswords game, a video game adaptation for the Nintendo DS handheld. The game includes over 1,000 Times crosswords from all days of the week. Various other forms of merchandise featuring the puzzle have been created, including dedicated electronic crossword handhelds that just contain Times crosswords, and a variety of Times crossword-themed memorabilia, including cookie jars, baseballs, cufflinks, plates, coasters, and mousepads. Fans of the Times crossword have kept track of a number of records and interesting puzzles (primarily from among those published in Shortz’s tenure), including those below. (All puzzles published from November 21, 1993, on are available to online subscribers to the Times crossword.) In 2022, the Times was criticized after many readers claimed that its December 18 crossword grid resembled a Nazi swastika. Some were particularly upset that the puzzle was published on the first night of Hanukkah. In a statement, the Times said the resemblance was unintentional, stemming from the grid’s rotational symmetry. The Times was also criticized in 2017 and 2014 for crossword grids that resembled a swastika, which it both times defended as a coincidence.
