Six French words you would need at a campsite in the woods

The six hidden words belong to a night in the woods: FORÊT for the forest, CABANE for a cabin, CORDE for rope, BÛCHE for a log, OURS for a bear, and ÉCUREUIL for a squirrel. Pictures sit beside the grid, so a child knows what each word means before scanning across and down for the letters that spell it. A campsite gives every one of these words something real to attach itself to.

Two of the words carry a circumflex, FORÊT and BÛCHE, and ÉCUREUIL opens with an acute accent. It is worth showing a child that these marks belong to the spelling and are not decoration. FORÊT is the neat one to explain: where French writes the little hat, English keeps an s — which is exactly how forest and FORÊT are related. OURS and CORDE are the short, plain ones and usually go first.

Print it before a camping trip, or during one, and go looking for the real thing: a log, a rope, a squirrel in a tree. ÉCUREUIL runs to eight letters and is the hardest to say, so leave it until last and let a child hear it a few times. The sheet is short, and nothing on it is timed or scored. A child who wants to do it twice will be quicker the second time.