Bug names in German, from short BIENE to long MARIENKÄFER

MARIENKÄFER is eleven letters and means ladybird — Mary's beetle, literally, which is the sort of fact a six-year-old keeps for years. It dominates the grid. Around it sit five shorter names: BIENE a bee, AMEISE an ant, RAUPE a caterpillar, LIBELLE a dragonfly and GRILLE a cricket, each printed with its picture so the meanings come free. Six words, then, with a wide spread of lengths between them.

BIENE and LIBELLE are the pair children muddle, both ending in the same soft sound and both built from letters that feel familiar. Have your child count the letters in the printed word before hunting: BIENE is five, LIBELLE is seven. Counting first turns a vague sweep of the grid into a targeted one, and it is quietly the most useful habit anyone brings to a word search.

Take it outdoors if the weather allows. Bugs are the one topic whose vocabulary is standing about in the garden waiting to be pointed at, and a word found in the grid in the morning and spotted on a leaf that afternoon rarely needs revising at all. Print it, circle the six, then go and look for an AMEISE on the path. A LIBELLE takes a pond and some luck, but the rest turn up all summer long.