Animals Word Search
- SLOTH
- GIRAFFE
- BEAVER
- KOALA
- OTTER
- BEAR
- ZEBRA
- BADGER
- DEER
- CAT
- BOBCAT
- PANDA
Created for free at puzzleandprint.com
Animals Word Search
Familiar creatures, from pets to the ones at the zoo.
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Animals Word Search, Answer Key
- SLOTH
- GIRAFFE
- BEAVER
- KOALA
- OTTER
- BEAR
- ZEBRA
- BADGER
- DEER
- CAT
- BOBCAT
- PANDA
Created for free at puzzleandprint.com
Or take one that is already made
Four sheets, each with a different job. Every one is a two-page PDF, the puzzle, then the answer key on its own page.
Animals word search, large print11 × 11 · 7 words · EasyDownload PDF ↓
Animals word search, everyday14 × 14 · 11 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Animals word search, more words15 × 15 · 14 words · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Animals word search, challenge17 × 17 · 15 words · HardDownload PDF ↓Every sheet here is free to print as often as you like. If one saved you time, the tip jar is on Ko-fi.
Animal words are usually the first vocabulary a child owns completely, which makes them ideal for a puzzle: the reading is the exercise, not the guessing. Most of these are three to seven letters, so they place well even in a small grid.
A useful trick with younger children is to read the word list aloud together before starting. Hearing a word and then finding it is a different task from hunting unknown strings, and it turns the sheet into reading practice rather than pattern matching.
The four sheets step along the list with overlaps, which suits a mixed group: MONKEY links large print to everyday, DEER, FOX, WOLF, GOAT and PANDA carry over to more words, and eight, CAMEL to HEDGEHOG, are shared with the challenge sheet.
Adding your own animals is worth the minute it takes if a child has a favorite. A sheet with their pet’s species on it holds attention noticeably longer than a generic one.
Where in the world the animals on this list live
Between them, the forty animals on this list live wild on all seven continents, Antarctica included, since SEAL reaches it. ZEBRA, GIRAFFE, HIPPO, CHEETAH and GORILLA all live in Africa; PANDA lives in China and KOALA in Australia; LEMUR is found wild only on Madagascar; SLOTH lives in the rainforests of Central and South America; and BISON, MOOSE and BOBCAT all live in North America. RHINO lives in both Africa and Asia, and TIGER is the one big cat on the list found wild in Asia and nowhere else, which makes a world map the best follow-up to a finished sheet.
HEDGEHOG makes a good surprise: there are no wild hedgehogs anywhere in the Americas, so a class in Canada or the United States may know the animal only from books, while a class in Britain may have one in the backyard. MOOSE has the opposite problem, since the same animal is called an elk in Britain and much of Europe. KOALA is often called a koala bear and is not a bear at all but a marsupial, carrying its young in a pouch, while PANDA really is one. Writing each animal on the right continent is a short task that needs nothing but the finished sheet and an outline map.
Which animal names on the list are hardest to spell
GIRAFFE, CHEETAH, SQUIRREL and GORILLA are the hardest animal names on the list to spell, and each one goes wrong in a predictable place. GIRAFFE has one R and two Fs, and the common mistakes are doubling the R or dropping an F. CHEETAH doubles its E and ends in an h that is not heard. SQUIRREL has the only Q on the list, a double R and an ending that is easy to write as le. GORILLA is one R and two Ls. None of the four is on the large print sheet, so they reach a child who has already had some practice on the shorter names.
HIPPO and RHINO, both on the challenge sheet, look like the easy words on the list, and they are, because both are shortened forms: the full names, hippopotamus and rhinoceros, run to twelve and ten letters. Giving the full names once the sheet is done is a quick way to stretch a confident speller. HEDGEHOG is a compound of hedge and hog, named for an animal that roots about in hedges and grunts a little like a pig, and BOBCAT has a whole CAT inside it. On the large print sheet, ZEBRA is the only word with a Z, and the filler letters rarely use one, so a Z is the first letter worth hunting for.
Common questions
Which sheet works for a group of mixed ages?
The everyday one, whose eleven words run from FOX at three letters to ELEPHANT at eight. DEER, WOLF and GOAT give the youngest short words to find while GIRAFFE and ELEPHANT keep an older child busy, and on its 14 by 14 grid no word runs backwards.
Can I put a particular child’s favorite animal in?
Yes: switch the maker above to Write my own and type their animal in beside favorites from this page. It takes up to 25 words of three letters or more, so a rat or a hamster fits, and pressing Rearrange then moves those same words into a fresh grid rather than swapping any out.
Are there any pets on the animals word search?
Yes, five of the forty are common pets: CAT, DOG, RABBIT, MOUSE and FERRET. FERRET is on none of the four ready-made sheets but can turn up in the maker above, which picks from the whole list, and HORSE, SHEEP, GOAT and DONKEY add the farm, so sorting the list into pets, farm animals and wild ones is a quick follow-up.
Want to know when new printables go up?
New printables when they go up, mostly seasonal, a few times a year.