New Year word search

Start from a list: three by age, and one of resolutions for the first day back at school. Every word can be changed, so add the year, a family's names or a class's goals. Set the grid size and which ways the words run, then print. The answer key is on page two.

Sheet number is the seed, so the same settings always give the same grid. Press New grid for another. Handy for a party where everyone races the same sheet.

The adult list hides two famous midnights. Auld Lang Syne is a Scots poem Robert Burns wrote in 1788. Its title means roughly "old times", and it is sung at the stroke of midnight on Hogmanay, the Scottish New Year's Eve, to see the old year out.

In New York the Times Square Ball has dropped every year since 31 December 1907, when it welcomed 1908. It starts down at 11:59 p.m. and comes to rest at midnight. The idea came from time balls, which dropped at a set hour so ships could check their clocks.

For ages 5 to 7, the 10 × 10 grid with words only across and down is plenty. From about 8, add diagonals. Words that run backwards make the hardest sheets. They suit teenagers, or adults waiting up for midnight.

Words go in longest first, each at a random spot that doesn't clash with letters already placed, and random letters fill the gaps. Filler can spell a short word by accident, so every word is checked after the fill and the filler rerolled until each appears exactly once. Spaces and punctuation are dropped inside the grid, so AULD LANG SYNE is hidden as AULDLANGSYNE.