Three borrowed words and three properly German ones, all hidden

Three of the six German words here will look instantly familiar. USA, HOTDOG and BASEBALL are borrowed straight into German and spelled just as an English reader expects, which hands a beginner three quick finds and the confidence to go after the three that genuinely differ. The picture list runs to a flag, a balloon and a cake, so nothing has to be looked up.

FLAGGE has a double g where English keeps a single one, and BALLON quietly drops a letter English holds on to, which is the slip to watch for: children supply the missing letter by habit and hunt for a word that is not there. KUCHEN is the real vocabulary win. It means cake, and a child who learns it here will meet it again in every German bakery word going.

Everything in the grid is printed in capitals, which sidesteps the German habit of giving each naming word a capital letter. Print it for a summer party table or an American-themed week. Expect the borrowed words to go first and KUCHEN to take longest; children scan for something cake-shaped among the letters, and it takes a moment to accept that the German word shares nothing at all with the English one. Six words, one grid, ten quiet minutes.