A raccoon is a WASCHBÄR, and it is in here somewhere

WASCHBÄR is the word to talk about on this sheet. It means raccoon, and it is built from WASCH, meaning wash, and BÄR, meaning bear, because the German name records the animal's habit of dabbling its food in water. Children who hear that story tend to remember the spelling afterwards, umlaut and all. There are six words in the grid, and this is the one worth stopping for.

WOLF and PANDA are spelled exactly as in English, so two of the six come free. ELCH, the moose, is four letters and slips past anyone scanning for something long. SCHWAN opens with SCH, a cluster German uses constantly; once your child has found the swan, they start noticing it in other words all year. GIRAFFE and WASCHBÄR are the long ones, at seven and eight letters.

Print it for an animal topic week or keep it for quiet time. The pictures make every meaning clear without translating, though it is worth reading the six words aloud first. GIRAFFE is spelled as in English but said differently, its final e sounded rather than silent, and a child who has only seen it written will happily mispronounce it for weeks. The whole sheet takes about ten minutes, less if your child works down the word list rather than round the grid.