One Finnish word hides inside another on this sheet

There is a small trap in this grid, and it is a useful one. KAAPPI, the cabinet, is hidden here — and so is VAATEKAAPPI, the closet, which contains KAAPPI inside it. A child who finds the long word and circles only its last six letters has found the wrong one. Checking the length against the printed word list is the fix, and it is a habit worth building early.

The other four are straightforward. AITA, the fence, is the shortest and generally goes first. VEITSI, the knife, has a vowel run beginners tend to misread, so it repays a second look. KYLPYAMME and LÄMMITIN are long but distinctive — a Y and a dotted Ä respectively, both easy to spot from across the page once a child knows to look for them.

House words are the ones a child meets every day, which makes them the best early vocabulary of all — you can point at the real thing while saying it. Print this alongside a walk round the kitchen, naming what you pass. It also works quietly on its own: give it to a child at the table and they will be occupied for a while. There is nothing to mark and no one to beat, and half a grid finished is still three new words met.