Farm animals word search

The farm theme goes beyond cow, pig and sheep. It includes the names farmers use for young animals and for males and females, so the same puzzle can hide a calf, a foal, a piglet, a lamb, a chick and a gosling. You will also find the places animals live, like the barn, stable, coop and pigpen, and the sounds they make: MOO, OINK, QUACK, NEIGH and CLUCK.

Some of these words surprise people. A young goat is a kid, a female sheep is a ewe and a male sheep is a ram. A young female horse is a filly and a young male is a colt. A group of cows is a herd, while sheep and chickens come in a flock.

For preschool and early-elementary classes, this is one of the gentlest themes on the site: most words have three to five letters and are easy to sound out. Pair the puzzle with a matching game afterward, linking each grown-up animal to its baby from the word list.

Play tip: three-letter words like EWE, RAM, SOW and HOG are the hardest to spot in a big grid, because they hide so easily among random letters. Find the long words first, such as STALLION or LIVESTOCK, and leave the tiny ones for the end.