Animal word search

This puzzle is a walk through the zoo, the woods and the backyard at once: big cats like the cheetah and jaguar, giants like the elephant and giraffe, and small neighbors such as the chipmunk, raccoon and hedgehog. Pets are in the list too, from the dog and cat to the hamster and gerbil.

A few facts to share while you play: the cheetah is the fastest land animal, the giraffe is the tallest, and the platypus is one of the very few mammals that lay eggs. The koala is often called a bear, but it is a marsupial that carries its young in a pouch, just like the kangaroo and the wombat.

Animal names are among the first words children learn to read, which makes this a natural pick for young players on the easy level. For older kids, the list doubles as a sorting game after the puzzle: which animals live in Africa, which hunt at night, which have stripes or spots? Birds, bugs and sea creatures have their own puzzles in the birds, insects and ocean themes.

Play tip: in a big grid, start with the letters that random filler rarely produces: the Z of ZEBRA, the X of FOX, the Q of SQUIRREL or the two pairs of doubled letters in RACCOON.