Saturday, September 13, 2014

All I Ever Learned, I Learned from the Crossword Puzzles

      Well, my title isn't quite right! I've learned a few things in other ways. In my last post I learned about scanners. That wasn't in a crossword puzzle. I do love doing crossword puzzles. I do the daily puzzle in the paper and any puzzle that's lying around. I rarely buy a book of crossword puzzles.

      I don't like or do the really hard and large crossword puzzles. I don't have the time or patience. I really dislike the easy puzzles and won't do them at all. I like the puzzle in my paper which takes about 20 minutes to complete. I don't ever have to look in the dictionary to solve it. 

    Now you do learn things from crosswords. You certainly learn a thing or two about spelling. Geography? Lots of it. Math? You bet. Other languages? Lots of French and Latin. Art and culture? Movies, music, art. It's all covered in the crossword. Logic? Yes! Use those clues. Now they tell us puzzles are good for helping with Alzheimer's.
  
   So I'm a big fan of crossword puzzles. They keep you competitive. You don't ever want a crossword puzzle to beat you. 

   I was a Middle School teacher. A couple times a month for the last period on a Friday we would do a crossword puzzle. Now you know that most kids don't like crossword puzzles. So I had to set out some bait. The puzzle was always easy. They could work with a partner. They could choose their own partner. If anybody was left out they could work with me. I let them work on their own until they got all the easy stuff. Then we completed the puzzle as a class. I read the clue and they gave their suggestions. I would sit  there until I heard the right answer. It was like a loud auction site. I think a few of them had fun and some probably do puzzles now that they are older. 

   There are lots of crossword puzzle fans. Are you one of them?