German names these sea animals by building them out of smaller words

Pictures of a fish, a dolphin, a seal, an octopus, a manatee and a sea horse run beside a grid that hides the German name of each one. Three are quick wins: FISCH, DELFIN and OKTOPUS are close enough to English that a child recognises them at a glance. ROBBE, the seal, has to be learned outright. The remaining two are built rather than borrowed, and that is the interesting part.

SEEKUH is the manatee, and it is exactly what it says: SEE for sea, KUH for cow, a sea cow. SEEPFERDCHEN is the sea horse, twelve letters long, made from sea, horse and a small ending that marks something little. Showing a child that seam is worth more than the puzzle itself. German assembles a great many of its words this way, and once someone expects it, long words stop looking frightening.

Print it after an aquarium visit or a sea programme, while the animals are still vivid. The long word is where a child will stall; twelve letters can run awkwardly across a row, and beginners often give up halfway along. Let them find the short ones first and come back to SEEPFERDCHEN at the end, when the grid has thinned out and the letters that are left are easier to read.