Watermelon, grill and lemonade — in Finnish

LIMONADI and GRILLI will look oddly familiar, because Finnish has borrowed them and dressed them in its own spelling — a doubled consonant here, a vowel added on the end there. Point that out first and a child has a way in. VESIMELONI is the same idea from the other direction: vesi is water, meloni is melon, and the watermelon in the pictures is literally a water-melon, which children find funny.

The grid holds six words, printed across and down, and the picture strip pairs each one with what it shows — a flag, an ice cream, a baseball. A child reads a row, spots JÄÄTELÖ sitting in it, and draws a ring. Two dotted letters in a row will slow most beginners down, so let them study the printed word for a moment before hunting; recognising it whole is exactly the skill being practised.

Teachers often use a sheet like this at the end of a Finnish session, when everyone needs something calm to do alone. It also travels well — it fits in a bag for a long car journey. LIPPU is the shortest word and usually goes first; PESAPALLO, being long, tends to be spotted last. There is no clock and no mark, so an unfinished grid can simply be picked up again tomorrow.