Six things to do in German, from TENNIS to WISSENSCHAFT

These six German words name things a child might do after school. TENNIS and BASKETBALL need no explanation and give a beginner somewhere to start. The other four do need explaining, and GEIGE is the one most children check against its picture twice: it means violin, it is short, and it resembles nothing in English. The picture list settles every meaning before the hunt begins.

WISSENSCHAFT, twelve letters, means science and is the long haul of this grid. WANDERN is hiking. FOTOGRAFIE is photography with the ph sound written as a plain f, which is a genuinely useful spelling rule to notice early on; point it out once and your child begins predicting how other borrowed words will look in German. BASKETBALL is ten letters yet reads at a glance, so it makes a good confidence-builder. GEIGE, at five letters, is the shortest of the six.

A good sheet for a first term of German, when children are learning to say what they like doing. Read the picture list aloud first, since WANDERN and GEIGE both need hearing before they can be recognised. Print it or work on screen. Children who trace with a finger reach the twelve-letter word far sooner than those who only scan, and answers check straight against the pictures.