Cryptic Crosswords for Children and Beginners
A beginner's introduction to cryptic crosswords - and a competition!
One of our favourite challenges to give to our older students is a good old cryptic crossword clue. Unlike regular crossword puzzles, cryptic crosswords encourage us to think outside of the box with word play. We need to avoid looking for a literal meaning behind the clue and, instead, piece together the puzzle inside it in order to construct our answer. Cryptic clues provide excellent practice in English language skills, developing our knowledge of:
- Synonyms
- Anagrams
- Use of a thesaurus and dictionary
- General knowledge
- Abbreviations
Many cryptic crosswords, however, are tailored for an older or more experienced audience who have a much wider range of vocabulary and general knowledge. This makes it difficult for children and absolute beginners to start getting into cryptic crosswords, as it's very easy to look at one in a newspaper and have no idea where to even begin!
We've put together a cryptic crossword that uses only the two easiest types of clue to spot - anagram clues and hidden word clues. If you can get a solid understanding of these types of cryptic crossword clue, then you should be able to answer at least a few clues in a regular cryptic crossword - and it will hopefully get you eager to learn about the more complicated clue types out there!
Cryptic crosswords are very satisfying to do as, often, you can work out an answer that is a completely new word to you. This is why it's false to assume that you can't do cryptic crosswords if you don't know lots of complicated and obscure words!
You can use the button below to download the crossword, fact sheet (which explains the anagram and hidden word clues) and a hint sheet that can be used if you get stuck with any of the clues.
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