Six Dutch woodland words to hunt down and circle

SLAK, SPECHT, WASBEER, DAS, ELAND, VUURVLIEGJE — six Dutch words, each one waiting somewhere in a block of letters. Beside the grid sits a small picture of the snail, the woodpecker, the raccoon and the rest, so your child always knows what they are looking for. The job is to read along the rows and down the columns until the letters suddenly spell a word they recognise, and then ring it.

Recognising a whole word on sight is the earliest kind of reading in a new language, and that is precisely what this grid asks for. Nothing has to be sounded out from scratch; the picture has already supplied the meaning. VUURVLIEGJE is a mouthful for a beginner, but eleven letters in a row turn its length into an advantage — long words stand out. DAS, by contrast, hides easily among its neighbours.

This one suits a quiet twenty minutes after a walk in the woods, or a wet Saturday when a child wants something to do with a pencil. Print it, say each Dutch word aloud together once before starting, then leave them to it. There is no timer and no score. Afterwards, ask which picture went with ELAND — most children remember, because they earned the word rather than being told it.