Literacy Milestone: Making a Crossword Puzzle

The other day my daughter decided, for reasons that aren't completely clear to me, to make her own crossword puzzle. She started by coming up with a list of words, all related to trees. Then she formed them into a connected grid (each word connected to one other word by one letter, nothing too complex). I pointed out one spelling error that necessitated a correction to the grid, and she had to start over again, but she was enjoying the process, so that was no problem. 

She erased the words from the final grid, leaving the list of words to be filled in. She thought that she was done, but I pointed out that to make it a true crossword puzzle she needed to next convert the words into clues. Which she did, with a little bit of help from me. (I'm not sure she knew much about, say, a birch tree.)

She then make a clean copy, which she could duplicate using our printer/copier. She presented a copy to her friend for his birthday, and made him do the puzzle (with some help) before opening the rest of his present.  My husband also got a copy to work on, of course. The image of the puzzle is shown below (click to enlarge). 

What I loved about this project was that it wasn't based on any kind of assignment. It was just something that seemed fun to do. And in the process she learned a bit more about crossword puzzles. I'm guessing she will also remember how to spell "cedar" in the future (though this has admittedly limited applicability in her day to day life).

I don't remember ever making my own crossword puzzles as a kid, but I have certainly had my phases of doing crossword puzzles over the years. How about all of you?

Thanks for reading, and for growing bookworms.

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