German colour words, including the ones beyond red and blue

Colours are harder to picture than objects, so the clues here are swatches: coral, lime, violet, black, red and brown. Their German names hide in the grid. ROT is only three letters and can lurk almost anywhere, so it is worth leaving until the longer words have been cleared out of the way and the grid has thinned a little.

VIOLETT and KORALLE sit close to their English cousins and give a beginner a foothold. LIMETTE borrows the fruit's name for the colour, exactly as English does. SCHWARZ and BRAUN are the two to learn properly. SCHWARZ opens with the SCH sound that turns up all over German, and getting it right here helps with every later word beginning the same way.

Colour words earn their keep quickly, because a child can use them about anything in the room. Try naming what you are both wearing in German once the grid is done. With a very young child, colour each found word in the shade it names. The paper takes pencils well, and that extra step fixes the meaning better than a plain circle does. Print a second copy if the first ends up thoroughly scribbled on, since a coloured sheet is rarely usable twice. Six colours is a sensible first set to own.