My daughter has always enjoyed crosswords and when she was younger we often completed crosswords linked to the topics that we were learning in Geography or History so I was excited to spot the KS3 Geography Crosswords created by Oaka Books.

The Crossword Booklets have been written as revision tools. So the idea would be the kids would only complete the Plate Tectonics crossword once they had finished learning about Plate Tectonics. (There is one double page crossword for each topic). The questions focus on key definitions and important features of each topic (so in a way it is actually a great summary of important facts). And they have included the answers at the back of each booklet (which is very useful as I will admit there were a couple of questions that I was not sure what the answer was).

Both Crossword booklets (Level 1 and Level 2) cover the exact same topics.

• Plate Tectonics
• Weather and Climate
• River Processes
• Population and Settlement
• Transport and Industry
• Environmental Issues
• Map Reading

The difference is in the layout and the questions asked. The Level 1 Crossword booklet is considered the easier version and it includes some picture clues with each question. Each crossword has 30 questions – so that is 30 revision questions for each topic (or as I like to think of it 30 key points per topic).

Having said that it is the “easier” version does not mean it is that easy. When my daughter worked on the River Crossword she filled in the answers to the questions she knew and then she did still had to go and look up a few answers in order to complete her crossword.

The Level 2 Crossword booklet does have slightly different questions and there are no visual clues to help with the answers. Also there are more questions per topic in the Level 2 booklet (there tends to be around 37 to 40 questions for each topic).

For our own personal use Level 1 suits us. It is just the right amount of questions at the right level to make revision engaging, interesting and VERY effective. If my daughter does decide to do Geography as a GCSE (or IGCSE) subject then we may use the Level 2 as a revision resource but for now Level 1 ticks all our needs. The only downside is now I keep wishing I could find more KS3 Crosswords like this for our other subjects.