Mushrooms and Fungi word search, scramble and crossword puzzle

Mushrooms and Fungi word search, scramble and crossword puzzle

I made this mushrooms and fungi puzzle set for my 3rd and 4th graders during our science unit on living things. The kids were fascinated by the mushrooms they saw in the woods but thought they were plants. They had no idea what words like spore, mycelium, or fungus meant, and they kept asking questions like "Can you eat all mushrooms?" So I put together a word search, a word scramble, and a crossword using words like mushroom, fungus, mycelium, spore, cap, stem, gills, underground, forest, wood, and decomposer.

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 the spelling of mycelium (it's a tricky one) or whether mushrooms and fungi are the same thing (they are—mushrooms are the fruiting body of a fungus). The crossword I use for partners, and I usually have a diagram of a mushroom labeled with its parts nearby for the kids who need the visual support. I added a couple simple mushroom and forest drawings but nothing too busy.

Works for 3rd through 5th grade. Print and go. Sometimes I have early finishers draw a mushroom and label its parts on the back, or write one way fungi help the forest. The kids actually ask for these now.