Six tree words to find, KOKOSNØD among them

Something worth pointing out to your child before they start: four of the six words on this sheet — BIRCH, WALNUT, ASH and CEDAR — look precisely like their English namesakes, while two do not. KOKOSNØD is the coconut, with a Danish ø sitting in the middle of it, and CITRON is the lemon. Noticing which words are strangers and which are old friends is itself a piece of language learning.

That ø in KOKOSNØD is the one letter a child cannot skim past. Finding it in the grid means looking for a character that does not exist in English, and once the eye has learned to catch it, the rest of Danish becomes easier to read. The other words are found the ordinary way: read a row, recognise the whole word, circle it. Pictures on the list keep every answer concrete.

This sheet suits an autumn nature walk rather well. Print it, work through the grid, then go outside and see whether you can find a birch or an ash on your own street — with the Danish word said aloud each time. It also works simply as a quiet-table activity in class. Nothing is timed and nothing is marked; the reward is the circle your child draws around CITRON when they finally spot it.