I visited my father last weekend. He is retired now, living the good life, as he likes to say. It was a laid back weekend, we spent some time talking since we don’t see each other that much. One thing I noticed is that he spent time doing puzzles, crosswords, word search, you know the type. I asked him about it, why he spent so much time doing them. I expected him to tell me that he was bored, or it helped pass the time. Instead he told me that he did them because they helped to keep his mind active. The variety of puzzles, the different types, all created an interest in him that helped keep his mind from slowing down. So we sat down at the computer he has (but hasn’t mastered), and I showed him a site that will help him create his own puzzles.
The site is called Word Search Puzzle Generator, and is one of the WorldVillage family of games sites. At this site, you can design your own word search puzzles. It is a very simple process. You supply a list of words, choose a puzzle size, enter your words, make mouse click, and presto, it’s done. You can make them as large or as small as you want. Any subject is available, and you could even use different languages. This can be a great tool for teachers and students. My dad took to making his own, using terms from his days of working in a sawmill.
There are other games from WorldVillage as well. Some of the games you can play are “Shoot The Moon”, “Dinosaur Drop”, “Mayan Mask Mayhem”, “Bad Apples” and “SpaceOut”, among others. THere are games that the whole family can enjoy, from the ones who are just learning to use a keyboard, to the more experienced ones among us. I haven’t shown the rest of these games to my dad yet. I figure the next trip to see him he’ll have the Word Search game down, and he’ll be ready for something new. But then again, he may have found them on his own. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?
http://www.worldvillage.com/wv/gamezone/puzzlegen/
