72 Free printable word morph puzzles (PDF)

Word morph puzzles

Here are some more interesting word puzzle activities you can print to test and challenge your students and friends. They are great for helping English learners build and remember vocabulary as they get students to think about the words required to solve them.

What are word morph puzzles? As the name morph suggests they are puzzles in which words must be changed. This is usually done by changing 1 or more letters to create a new word. In some cases, letters can also be added, subtracted, or even rearranged.

To solve the word morph puzzles on this page you are given clues for 2 words and instructions on how to change the first word into the second. Let’s look at some quick examples –

Example 1 –

Instructions – Change 1 letter in the first word to make the second word.

Clue 1 – A common household pet

Clue 2 – Weather that is hard to see in

Answers – dog – fog

Example 2 –

Clue – Add 3 letters to something that is very hot to make a bright flying insect

Answer – firefly (fire+fly)

As you can see the concept of these puzzles is very simple. The instructions and clues are what define the difficulty level.

You will find easy and slightly challenging puzzles here that can be used for fairly low-level classes. Just have a quick look at the instructions and clues (or even the solutions!) to see if they match your student’s ability. Note that some ESL learners will benefit from using a multi-language dictionary if the required vocabulary is a bit too hard for them.

Ideas for using the word morph puzzles

Although these amusing conundrums make for quick warmer or cooler activities they can also be used in a few different ways that really engage your class. Try out these cool ideas!

A race to finish. This is best done in pairs or small teams. Simply put your groups together and see who can complete the puzzles the fastest. It is a also good idea to have a reward for the winner.

Class quiz. Cut each word morph puzzle from the printed PDF pages into a strip. Have one student come to the front of the class and read it aloud. The first team to guess correctly wins a point.

Creating new puzzles. This one gets learners thinking hard. See if they can come up with their own puzzles that they can later test classmates with. Dictionaries will come in handy here.

Draw the answers. As an added challenge ask students to draw a picture of their answer alongside their written reponses.