Kings and queens of the ice
The poles are home to some of the toughest animals alive, and this word search gathers them all. You'll be tracking the great POLAR BEAR padding across the sea ice, the huddling PENGUIN, the tusked NARWHAL and WALRUS, and the speedy ORCA cruising the icy water.
Each puzzle pulls a fresh selection from the pack, so the ice changes every time you play — gentle on Easy, and a Hard-mode trek once the diagonals and backwards words appear (a REINDEER may trot in backwards).
Big, small and seriously fluffy
The smaller residents get their moment too. Keep an eye out for the tiny LEMMING, the white-coated ERMINE and STOAT, the fierce WOLVERINE and LYNX, the loyal HUSKY pulling a sled, and the silent SNOWY OWL on the hunt. There's the REINDEER and CARIBOU, the huge MOOSE, the white BELUGA whale, seabirds like the PUFFIN, TERN and SKUA — and the tiny KRILL that feed the whole ocean, for sharp-eyed explorers.
Built to beat the cold
Every animal here has a clever trick for surviving where it's almost always below freezing. The POLAR BEAR has black skin under its fur to soak up the sun, and a thick layer of blubber — the same fatty padding that keeps the WALRUS, SEAL and BELUGA warm in icy water. The ARCTIC FOX, ERMINE and STOAT swap a brown summer coat for a snow-white winter one, so they vanish against the snow, while a SNOWY OWL is camouflaged white all year round.
Here's the fact that surprises everyone: the POLAR BEAR and the PENGUIN never actually meet in the wild. Polar bears live only in the Arctic, at the top of the world, while penguins live only around the Antarctic at the bottom — opposite ends of the Earth. The poles also share a strange rhythm of light, with months of constant daylight in summer and long, dark winters, so many animals like the REINDEER migrate huge distances to follow the food. All of which makes polar animals a brilliant topic for a lesson on cold habitats and how creatures adapt.
Great for a polar or cold-habitats topic
Easy mode keeps the grid small with no diagonals or reverse words, ideal for a lesson on polar regions and animal adaptations. Play online, print a PDF pack, or use Make Your Own to build a grid from your own polar animals.