Seasonal & Holidays

Fall Word Search

This fall word search hides words like leaves, acorn, haystack to find. Play it free online or print the PDF with the answer key, a handy fall vocabulary activity.

10 words · 11×11 grid · Medium · Answer key included · Free printable PDF

Seasonal & Holidays

Show / hide answers

Tap the first and last letter of a word — or use arrow keys and Enter. Dragging works too.

CORNSTALK
HAYSTACK
CHESTNUT
SQUIRREL
HAYRIDE
BONFIRE
FOLIAGE
ORCHARD
LEAVES
ACORN

🎉 Solved — all 10 words found!

True stories

The giant in the field

Paris, Ontario

In the small town of Paris, Ontario, the Speers family decided their fall fair needed something unforgettable. Working with a crew of fifteen volunteers, they raised a scarecrow they named Stretch II that towered more than 103 feet over the fairgrounds, roughly the height of a ten-story building. Guinness recorded it in 1989 as the tallest scarecrow ever built, a title it has held for decades. It took ropes, cranes, and a great deal of stuffing, and crowds gathered just to stand in its shadow. The friendly straw giant turned an ordinary harvest fair into a story the town still tells, proof that a humble field guardian can become a landmark.

Chasing the colors

Stowe, Vermont

Every autumn the hills around Stowe, Vermont, fill with travelers who come for one thing: the leaves. Locals call them leaf peepers, a nickname first printed in a Vermont newspaper in the 1960s, and they arrive by the millions. The U.S. Forest Service estimates that fall foliage brings New England billions of dollars each year, money that helps small towns through the quiet months ahead. The colors themselves are a kind of countdown. As nights grow long, trees stop making green chlorophyll, and hidden gold, orange, and crimson finally show. Visitors are really watching the forest prepare for winter, one brilliant leaf at a time.

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Did you know?

leaves: Autumn yellow can be hidden in a leaf all summer, while some reds are newly made as the green fades.
acorn: One large oak can drop up to 10,000 acorns in a bumper crop year, yet most acorns never sprout into trees.
haystack: Damp hay can heat itself as microbes grow, sometimes becoming hot enough for a haystack to catch fire without a spark.
hayride: Horses hauling hay across marshes wore broad wooden bog shoes, giving transport oversized footwear to keep hooves from sinking into soft ground.
bonfire: The word bonfire comes from bone fire, the old practice of burning animal bones in large open community fires.
chestnut: Sicily's Hundred Horse Chestnut is named for a legend of a queen and a hundred riders sheltering beneath one tree during storms.
squirrel: A squirrel can steal another's buried nuts, so some squirrels pretend to bury food when a watcher is nearby.
foliage: Ginkgo trees can drop their yellow foliage almost overnight after a freeze, turning a canopy into a golden carpet with remarkable suddenness.
orchard: Apple trees in an orchard are usually grafted, so every tree of one variety is essentially a clone.
cornstalk: A cornstalk bears separate male and female flowers: pollen comes from its tassel, while each silk leads to a developing kernel.
flannel: Prickly teasel heads once brushed woolen cloth into fluffy flannel, making a scratchy plant part of the process that creates cozy fabric.
sweater: The word sweater comes from the heavy knit garments athletes once wore to sweat off weight before a match.
pinecone: A pinecone opens its scales in dry weather to release seeds and closes them tight when rain is near.
raincoat: The first rubberized waterproof coats were called mackintoshes, after Charles Macintosh, who patented the fabric in Scotland in 1823.

Trivia

Which pigment fades from leaves in autumn, revealing the yellows and oranges that were there all along?
Chlorophyll.
In the Northern Hemisphere, which day around September 22 marks the start of astronomical autumn?
The autumnal equinox.
What red-and-purple pigment do leaves actually make fresh in fall, unlike the yellow ones?
Anthocyanin.
What is the affectionate nickname for tourists who travel to see colorful autumn trees?
Leaf peepers.
Which full moon nearest the autumn equinox is named for the season's gathering of crops?
The Harvest Moon.

Trivia · 1 / 5

Which pigment fades from leaves in autumn, revealing the yellows and oranges that were there all along?

Chlorophyll.

In their words

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.
George Eliot

October is the month for painted leaves. Their rich glow now flashes round the world.
Henry David Thoreau

Is this fall word search free to print?

This fall word search is a free printable puzzle with 10 hidden words in an 11×11 grid. Find words like CORNSTALK, HAYSTACK, CHESTNUT hidden across, down, and diagonally. You can play it right here in your browser — tap the first and last letter of a word — or download it as a printable PDF with the full answer key on page two. It's free for personal and classroom use, so teachers can print copies for a whole class with no sign-up and no account. Word searches like this one are a proven way to build vocabulary, spelling, and word-shape recognition, which is why they're a favourite with ESL learners, elementary classrooms, and anyone who likes a quiet puzzle with their coffee.

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