On the calendar, what astronomical event marks the start of winter in the Northern Hemisphere?

The winter solstice, the year's shortest day.

Roughly what temperature, in Fahrenheit, does water freeze at sea level?

32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 Celsius).

Seasonal & Holidays

Winter Word Search

This winter word search hides words like snowman, snowflake, mittens to find. Play it free online or print the PDF with the answer key, a handy winter 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.

SNOWFLAKE
FIREPLACE
SLEDDING
BLIZZARD
SNOWBALL
SNOWMAN
MITTENS
PENGUIN
ICICLE
IGLOO

🎉 Solved — all 10 words found!

True stories

Proving the doubters wrong

Saint Paul, Minnesota

In 1885 a New York reporter sneered that Saint Paul, Minnesota, was another Siberia, unfit for human habitation. Stung by the insult, residents decided to celebrate their cold instead of hiding from it. The next winter they threw the very first Saint Paul Winter Carnival and invited an architect from Montreal to raise a palace from more than twenty thousand blocks of river ice. The glittering tower stood over a hundred feet tall and was among the first buildings lit by electric light. The carnival became the oldest winter festival in the United States and still runs today, a yearly answer to anyone who thinks frozen months are something only to endure.

The man who caught snowflakes

Jericho, Vermont

On a snowy day in 1885, a nineteen-year-old farmer named Wilson Bentley stood in an unheated shed near Jericho, Vermont, working a camera he had rigged to a microscope. Catching a falling crystal on a black board, he raced to photograph it before his breath or the warmth of his hands could melt it away. That winter he captured the first known photograph of a single snowflake. Over the next forty-six years he photographed more than five thousand of them, never finding two the same. Neighbors thought the work was foolish, yet his patient images of fleeting ice still shape how schoolbooks picture a snowflake today.

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Did you know?

snowman: Maine's towering 2008 snowwoman had skis for eyelashes and whole trees for arms, turning everyday proportions into giant winter sculpture.
snowflake: Two snow crystals have been photographed looking alike, although matching appearances don't mean every microscopic detail is identical.
mittens: Michigan's Lower Peninsula resembles a mitten, letting residents point to places on a raised hand and turn their palm into a map.
sledding: The Cresta Run in Switzerland, an ice track built in 1884, sends riders headfirst at nearly 80 miles per hour.
icicle: Icicles grow from both ends at once, lengthening at the dripping tip while a thin shell of ice thickens the sides.
blizzard: For an official blizzard, snow is optional: forecasters need strong wind and low visibility for hours, even if no new snow falls.
snowball: Scientists call some ancient ice ages Snowball Earth, because glacial deposits show ice once reached tropical regions at sea level.
igloo: Inuktitut iglu means house, including wooden homes, while English borrowed it mainly for the snow-block shelter familiar from winter pictures.
fireplace: Some Yule-log traditions saved a piece to light next year's fire, linking two winters through one carefully saved piece of wood.
penguin: Emperor penguins huddle by the thousands and shuffle in slow waves, rotating from the freezing edge to the warm middle and back.
hotcocoa: Cocoa was once a cold, bitter, spiced drink; the Aztecs prized the beans so highly they used them as money.
avalanche: A human shout normally can't trigger an avalanche by sound alone, despite the idea of a loud voice setting off a mountainside.
evergreen: Bristlecone pines can keep needles for up to forty years, so one tiny leaf may survive through decades of changing seasons.
reindeer: Reindeer eyes shift from gold in summer to blue in winter, helping them see through the long, dim Arctic darkness.

Trivia

What gives most fresh snow its bright white color, even though ice itself is clear?
Light scattering off countless tiny crystal surfaces and air pockets.
On the calendar, what astronomical event marks the start of winter in the Northern Hemisphere?
The winter solstice, the year's shortest day.
Indigenous peoples of the Arctic build snow-block shelters. By what well-known name are these known?
Igloos.
Roughly what temperature, in Fahrenheit, does water freeze at sea level?
32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 Celsius).
Which large flightless birds raise their chicks through the Antarctic winter, the coldest breeding season of any bird?
Emperor penguins.

Trivia · 1 / 5

What gives most fresh snow its bright white color, even though ice itself is clear?

Light scattering off countless tiny crystal surfaces and air pockets.

In their words

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
Albert Camus

If winter comes, can spring be far behind?
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Is this winter word search free to print?

This winter word search is a free printable puzzle with 10 hidden words in an 11×11 grid. Find words like SNOWFLAKE, FIREPLACE, SLEDDING 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.

Print this Winter word search