Saint Dwynwen / St Dwynwen's Day

Celebrate St Dwynwen’s Day on 25 January with these 2 fun and flexible no prep puzzles about Saint Dwynwen / Santes Dwynwen, the Welsh patron saint of love and lovers. Although the crossword would need to be printed, the other puzzle can just be displayed on a screen and students can message you the answer.

The zip file contains a True or False Hidden Word Puzzle and a Crossword Puzzle, plus solutions, all in PDF format. These activities work well as follow up work to an assembly, as part of a stand-alone lesson or as part of a longer topic. They could be used as starter tasks (if building on previous learning), as individual or group tasks to focus pupils’ own research, an informal assessment task at the end of a topic or mini-focus, early finisher tasks or engaging homework tasks. These would best suit Upper Key Stage 2 / KS2, early KS3 and other equivalents.

The Hidden Word Puzzle includes 15 statements about St Dwynwen and St Dwynwen’s Day, which is the equivalent of St Valentine’s Day in Wales. Pupils must work out which ones are incorrect and then, using the grid at the bottom, rearrange the letters linked to the incorrect statements to find a word related to the subject of the puzzle. This is a very flexible resource, which works especially well to focus pupils’ own online research. All statements can be checked by looking through the first few websites that come up in internet searches. Children will practise reading comprehension skills and skimming and scanning strategies. They will also practise their digital literacy skills as they check facts, evaluating the reliability of websites used, ensuring they check more than one website etc. The solution to the puzzle, identifying and correcting the relevant statements, is included on a separate page. As versions of Dwynwen’s story can vary, the puzzles focus on details agreed on by several key websites.

The crossword could be used with the same pupils as although there is some overlap between the two puzzles in the information covered, there are also details in each which do not appear in the other.

No preparation is required, other than simply printing and copying. Two previews are provided, with a 4-page PDF document - containing the puzzles and their solutions - in the zip file. I hope your students enjoy using these puzzles. I would be grateful for a review if you get a spare moment.

Thank you for your interest in my resources. Please visit FullShelf Resources for engaging, time-saving printables, activities and presentations to plan Primary (and some Secondary) Literacy / English, Maths / Numeracy and French lessons. I also have a growing collection of puzzles for special events, anniversaries and Social Studies.