Printables: Everything You Need to Know
It’s no secret. Here at Resumates, we’ve always been all about printing. So it’s no surprise that we love our topic today; printables.
What are Printables?
Printables are just that; things you can print at home. Typically, printables are free intellectual property that can be downloaded and printed by anyone. That’s a very broad definition, and in fact, printables are an outrageously diverse category. We’ve compiled a list of some of our absolute favorite printable documents we’ve found online. People are printing all kinds of crazy things! Everything from maps to birthday cards to paint-by-numbers to eye charts.
Games
Word searches. Remember word searches? Word searches come with a grid of letters and a bank of words. Your job as the word searcher is to find (and circle) all the words from the word bank in the grid of letters. Sometimes they’ll be vertical, sometimes horizontal, and sometimes even diagonal. These are great for kids and you can get great themed ones for anything from Safari Animals to Simpsons Characters. Or, if you’re more bold, make your own!
Crossword puzzles. These are a staple of your grandmother’s living room and traditional newspapers. Our favorite? Check out the Washington Posts’ free, printable offering. Click a puzzle and then find the print button in the top right corner. Just don’t cheat and print out the answers!
Bingo Cards. Looking for a fun, social activity for a big group? Look no further than bingo cards. With the magic of printable cards, you can get started easily with a printer and an internet connection. Check out our favorites. Just don’t yell BINGO too early!
Mad Libs. These can’t miss create-your-own story tools are fun for the whole family. Just pick your favorite nouns, verbs, and adjectives and plug them into the story template. Madness ensues! Go to madlibs.com to get your daily dose of free, downloadable silliness.
Sudoku. Looking for something more logical and numerical and less verbal? You can’t go wrong with a sudoku puzzle. Make every row, column, and 3x3 square contain the numbers 1-9 and you’re a winner. Find our favorite printable puzzles here. Start with an easy one and work your way up to the hard ones.
Mazes. The age old question. Do you start at the beginning or at the end? Regardless of your strategy, find your way over to education.com for an incredible selection of free mazes. They’ve got mazes for every grade level. Our favorite is the corn themed maze. It’s a little easier with a bird’s eye view!
Yahtzee Score Sheets. Looking to play some Yahtzee but don’t have any more sheets? There’s a simple solution for that. Print your own score sheets. It’s certainly easier than rolling a Yahtzee!
Arts & Crafts
Coloring Pages. Crayola’s got a great selection of free colorable sheets. Adult coloring is all the rage these days, but they have great stuff for kids too! You can do crayons, markers or colored pencils. We’re partial to colored pencils since they give finer control.
Paint by Numbers. This is a fun one. Paint by numbers is a guided painting technique where you match paints to their corresponding number that’s labeled on the paper. Paintable Pictures has a bunch of free designs for printing on normal 8.5”x11” paper. You can bring your own paints or buy their specially curated ones that they’ll ship to you.
Wall Art. It may not be museum quality, but if you’re looking for budget wall art, you could try printing your own. Sarah Titus has assembled quite the collection on her website.
Organization
Calendar. Need a visual reminder of all your appointments? A wall calendar is a classic for a reason. Go here and grab a free one, print, and hang it. Find one that will leave enough space for jotting down everything you need. We generally like one month per page.
Daily Planner. If you want something more short term than a monthly calendar, look no further than a blank daily planner. A great habit to develop is to sit down at the beginning of each day and take a little time to plan what you want to accomplish before the sun goes down. TemplateLab has some nice printable daily planner files.
- To Do List. Similar to a daily planner, a to do list is a great way to plan your day. In a to do list, though, everything is built around tasks rather than times. If your days are built around important, but not urgent, tasks, a to do list can be a great choice. Printabletodolist.com is our go to for a to do.
Budget. Budgeting is one of those things, like exercise, that we all know we’re supposed to do, but don’t anyway. If you’re looking to change that, MyFrugalHome has the budget worksheets you’re looking for. Print these puppies out, sharpen your pencil, and find some savings in your life.
Time Sheets. Here at Resumates, we’re running a small business, so printable time sheet templates are no stranger to us. Clockify has an absurdly comprehensive collection of every kind of timesheet you’d ever need in any format you’d ever want. They’ve got daily, weekly, biweekly, and monthly in Word, Excel, PDF, Google Docs, and Google Sheets.
- Grocery List. Do you want to happen to the grocery store or do you want the grocery store to happen to you? Going to the grocery store with a healthy plan is the easiest way to avoid temptation. Resisting junk food is easier once a week (at the grocery store) than the entire rest of the week (when you brought it home). Check these grocery list templates out.
Recipe Cards. Harness the full power of the internet’s infinite recipes and blend with Grandma’s old fashioned paper-based recipe cards. Print your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe and get baking. Canva has some great templates.
Education
United States map. Mr. Printables has what you’re looking for, whether it’s a blank map for testing your knowledge or a handy state name & capitals map. As always, these are super easy to print. Perfect for third graders!
Periodic Table. For something more middle school age appropriate, behold the printable periodic table. ScienceNotes has PDFs and PNGs and all kinds of color themes to choose from. Our fave? The Carina Nebula Periodic Table.
Multiplication Table. Working with junior on those times tables? Maybe need a refresher yourself? Dad’s Worksheets to the rescue. You can get up to 15x15 grids -- multiplies to 225!
Worksheets. This deserves a whole post of its own given how broad and diverse the category is. If forced to choose a place to start looking for worksheets for elementary aged kids though, we’d choose K5Learning. There, you’ll find math, reading, vocab, spelling, science, and grammar. All for the low price of free :)
US Constitution. Want to teach some good, old fashioned American principles? Freedom of the printing press is the first one, don’t hesitate to fire up your printer. It’s your Constitutionally granted right. This PDF from the Constitution Center is a great way to get started.
Flashcards. Make your own printable flashcards with KitzKikz. Simply type your questions and answers in the provided boxes and then click “PDF” and you’ll be able to make your own flashcards. You’ll likely need a scissors and some folding skills to make them as instructed.
Official Documents
1099 Form
Vehicle Bill of Sale
Lease / Rental Agreement
Will
Invoice
Divorce Paper
Eviction Notice
Temporary License Plate
Greetings
Birthday Cards
Letters
Thank you cards
Name Tags
Anniversary Cards
Invitations
Tools
Ruler. We’ve all been there. We need to measure something, but don’t have a ruler or tape measure handy. As long as you have a printer handy, you can actually print a ruler. Make sure to print on the right paper size to get an accurate measurement. This site has 12” rulers to print on A4 on letter sized paper.
Protractor
Bookmarks
Number Line
Unit Circle
Venn Diagram
Eye Charts
Ring Size
Shoe Size
Paper
Graph paper
Lined Paper / Notebook Paper
Letter Stencils