Six Finnish puddings and sweets, buried in letters

Read this list aloud and a pattern arrives on its own: KAKKU, KEKSI, MUFFINI, DONITSI, TORTTU, TIKKARI. Every one of them finishes on a vowel, which is close to a rule in Finnish and the reason borrowed words come out sounding so unlike their originals. A doughnut becomes DONITSI; a biscuit becomes KEKSI; a muffin gains an extra syllable and turns into MUFFINI.

KAKKU and TORTTU are the quick wins, five and six letters with a doubled consonant sitting in the middle to catch the eye. TIKKARI, the lollipop, is the one children tend to leave until last. Each word has its picture at the head of the sheet, so the hunt is about matching letters to something already seen, not about working out meanings. Six is a comfortable number for one sitting.

Food vocabulary sticks because it gets used. This sheet suits a baking week, a birthday, or the afternoon before a class party, and it gives a child something to do with their hands while they wait. If they finish and want more, ask them to draw a seventh sweet and have a guess at what it might be called in Finnish. Guesses that end in a vowel are already halfway sensible, which is a pleasant thing for a beginner to discover on their own.