Fossils and Paleontology Word search, scramble and crossword

Match fossil vocabulary to short definitions, such as identifying a cast as a filled imprint and a mold as an empty one

Spell fifteen paleontology terms correctly, including long ones like permineralization and carbonization

Recognise the specialist words for extinct organisms and for the scientist who studies them

All three puzzles use the same fifteen words, so run the crossword first and the word search last - by the third pass students are checking spelling rather than recalling meaning

The clues are definitions rather than descriptions, so the crossword doubles as a vocabulary check and can be marked as one

The scramble prints a blank of the correct length under each item, which quietly gives away word length - useful as scaffolding, worth covering if the sheet is being used to assess

Fossil vocabulary - fifteen terms including mold, cast, trace fossil, carbonization, permineralization and index fossils are matched to one-line definitions in the crossword.

Spelling long technical words - the scramble asks students to unjumble ENIREAZTNIMLOIARP into permineralization and OAANBTCOIIRZN into carbonization, letter by letter.

Visual word recognition - the word search sets the same terms in a letter grid, which asks students to recognise each word by shape after they have met it by definition.