Women in Leadership Word Search, Scramble and Crossword Puzzle

I made this women in leadership puzzle set for my Year 5 students during our biography unit and Women's History Month. The kids could name a few leaders like Rosa Parks and Malala, but they had no idea about the breadth of leadership roles women hold—from presidents and CEOs to ambassadors and governors. So I put together a word search, a word scramble, and a crossword using the surnames of leaders like Thatcher, Merkel, Gandhi, Bhutto, Bachelet, Robinson, Halonen, Lagarde, Gbowee, and Pelosi.

The PDFs are six pages. Three puzzles, each with its own answer key page. The word search works well for quiet time after break or independent practice. The scramble gets them talking because they argue about whether "resilient" and "persistent" mean the same thing, or what a "visionary" actually does. The crossword I use for partners or as a review after we've read short biographies of leaders like Kamala Harris, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Malala Yousafzai . I added a couple simple star, podium, and handshake drawings but nothing too busy.

Works for Year 5 through Year 7. Print and go. Sometimes I have early finishers pick one leadership word from the puzzles and write a sentence about what it means to be a leader on the back. The kids actually ask for these now.