The pets on this sheet are not the ones you expect

No dog, no cat. The six Dutch words hidden here are VINK, GERBIL, LEGUAAN, GEKKO, KIKKER and SCHILDPAD — a finch, a gerbil, an iguana, a gecko, a frog and a tortoise. That makes it a more useful sheet than a predictable one would be, because these are precisely the animals children stop and ask about in a pet shop and then have no word for.

SCHILDPAD is the one to talk about. Schild means shield and pad means toad, so a Dutch tortoise is a shield-toad, a description a five-year-old can picture instantly and will not forget. KIKKER, the frog, comes easily and almost sounds like what it is. LEGUAAN looks alarming but is only the iguana in Dutch spelling, and saying it out loud, roughly lay-goo-ahn, usually makes the letters resolve.

Print it before a visit to a pet shop or a reptile house, or straight after one while a child still remembers which animal was which. Four letters is the shortest word here, so nothing is buried very deep, though VINK is small enough to be missed on a first sweep and is worth a hint if the pencil stalls. GERBIL, spelled as in English, tends to go first. Everything else on the page a child can manage alone, at whatever pace suits the afternoon.