What a French child calls a shark, an octopus and a manatee

A shark, an octopus, a manatee, an oyster: the pictures do the explaining, so a child who has never seen these words before can still work out which is which. Each French name is somewhere in the grid, laid out across or down. The child reads along the rows until the letters of REQUIN or CALMAR line up, then circles them. Nothing is spelled out from scratch; the whole job is spotting a word that is already there on the page.

PIEUVRE is the one that stops children. Four vowels in seven letters, and no English word to lean on. HUÎTRE has a circumflex over its third letter, which is easy to lose in a printed grid. LAMANTIN, at eight letters, looks harder than it is — it reads much as it sounds, and children usually find it faster than the shorter ALGUE.

Sea topics come round every summer, so this sheet has an obvious moment: the week before a beach holiday, or alongside a book about rock pools. It also works as a follow-up to an aquarium visit, when the animals are still fresh. Let the child say each word once while pointing at its picture before starting; the hunt goes noticeably faster when the sound is already in place.