Six French vegetables to track down, one letter row at a time

Six French vegetables are hidden in the grid, with pictures — a cucumber, a leek, garlic, celery — showing which words to look for. Your child reads across and down until the letters match, then circles. AIL, at three letters, is the shortest answer on the sheet and is often the last one found, for exactly that reason. The pictures carry the meaning, so no translating happens before the pencil starts, and six words make one comfortable sitting.

AUBERGINE will look familiar to a British reader, because English took the word from French and left it almost untouched. CONCOMBRE and PANAIS are less generous and need slower scanning. Nine letters of CONCOMBRE give a child a good deal to hold in mind at once, and holding it is where the practice actually lives. POIREAU sits in between; say it aloud once it is circled.

This is the sheet to print before a trip to a market or a French supermarket, where these words are sitting on the labels. Do the puzzle first, then let your child spot the same words in the wild. Nothing is timed, so a slow and careful search serves a beginner far better here than a quick one. Six words is enough for a sitting, and it can be printed again later.