Friday 30 January 2015

a free crostic puzzle

I'm not sure if any of you (humans, that is) have ever done a crostic puzzle, but here's one, courtesy of one of Penny's humans.

The diagram is not a crossword, even though it might look like one. The whole thing is an excerpt from a piece of writing, in this case a novel. No hints as to which novel, of course, but if you have read any of Hsin-Yi's doggy mysteries, you might...oops, I wasn't supposed to give any hints.

Each word in the text ends at a shaded square, which is not necessarily at the end of a line. There's no punctuation.

You answer the clues as best you can, and transfer the letters to the diagram. The tiny letter in the top right of each square tells you which clue to transfer from.

Often you can guess incomplete words on the diagram, especially if you've read about Honey and her adventures - oops, forgot I'm not going to give away which author features in the puzzle.

As an extra help, the first letters of each answer, on the clue page, reading down, spell the name of the author and the title of the book.

In case I haven't explained clearly, here are some links to sites that describe the way to solve a crostic:
how stuff works
netcrostics

I'm including it as a jpg, so you would have to print out these two following sections, if you want to do it. I don't know how to make it bigger on the blog page, but if you click on each page of the puzzle, it opens in a new window where it's easier to read.

In a couple of weeks I'll post the answer, just in case someone wants to see it.

Have fun!

BTW, I've just had a thought. Seeing I'm a primary school teacher (elementary school), I'll mention that this puzzle is copyright free. Any teachers using H A Hanna's award-winning books in class are welcome to print off these puzzles.







7 comments:

Lassiter Chase and Benjamin said...

We've never seen a puzzle like this! Our Mommy wants to try it! Wish her luck!

parlance said...

Lassie and Benji, if your mum is a puzzle lover, maybe she could follow the links I posted and try some others. I hope she has good luck and good fun!

parlance said...

Lassie and Benji, if your mum is a puzzle lover, maybe she could follow the links I posted and try some others. I hope she has good luck and good fun!

Molly the Airedale said...

This looks like fun. Our mom loves to work crossword puzzles when she has the time for them.

Love ya lots♥
Mitch and Molly

parlance said...

Mitch and Molly, she might find she likes crostics just as much as crosswords, lol.

Lassiter Chase and Benjamin said...

We solved the puzzle! Finally! Our mom cheated 10 times by looking up stuff on the internet, -- but we finally solved the puzzle.

Mommy was determined to answer "hint H" all by herself without looking it up on the internet. She finally figured that clue out all by herself and was so proud of herself.

Lets just say, we wouldn't have been able to solve the hints page without your little hints you gave in your blog post about the author name and book title.

We never did figure out what the little letters in the top right corner of the boxes meant. Oh well.

At least we solved the puzzle.

parlance said...

Lassie and Benji, your mum must be very, very clever, and very determined. The little letters in the corners of the squares were just to tell her which clue matched that square. I'm amazed that she did it, if she has not done a crostic before.

I'm coming over to your blog to repeat this compliment, just to make sure she sees it.