Alliteration and Onomatopoeia word search, scramble and crossword puzz

Alliteration and Onomatopoeia word search, scramble and crossword puzzle

I made this alliteration and onomatopoeia puzzle set for my 3rd and 4th graders during our figurative language unit. The kids loved sound words like "boom" and "bam" but had no idea what to call them, and they thought alliteration was just a fancy word for rhyming. So I put together a word search, a word scramble, and a crossword using alliteration examples like Peter picked pickled peppers, Betty bought butter, and silly snakes, plus onomatopoeia examples like boom, crash, buzz, hiss, pop, splash, sizzle, screech, thud, and whoosh. Nothing fancy — just puzzles to help the two sound devices finally stick.

The PDF is four pages. Three puzzles plus one answer key page. The word search works well for quiet time after recess. The scramble gets them talking because they argue about whether "buzz" sounds like an actual bee. The crossword I use for partners. I added a couple simple snake and explosion drawings but nothing too busy.

Works for 3rd through 5th grade. Print and go. Sometimes I have early finishers write one example of each on the back. The kids actually ask for these now.