From HUND to SCHILDKRÖTE: German pet words hiding in one grid

Six animals a child might keep at home are pictured beside the grid: a dog, a hamster, a gecko, a finch, a goldfish and a tortoise. Their German names are hidden among the letters. HUND is the dog, FINK the finch, SCHILDKRÖTE the tortoise. The child works across the rows and down the columns, and circles each name once the whole of it lines up in a straight run.

Two of these words need no explaining at all. GECKO and HAMSTER are spelled exactly as they are in English, so a beginner starts with a success and keeps going. GOLDFISCH is nearly as easy once the two halves are pointed out. SCHILDKRÖTE is the opposite: eleven letters, an umlaut in the middle, and a meaning built from a shield and a toad, which is worth saying aloud because children remember it.

It suits a quiet afternoon at home rather than a lesson. This is household vocabulary, the kind picked up by naming the animals a child already knows. Watch the shortest words. FINK and HUND are four letters each and get lost in the noise of a full grid; a child who has triumphed over the long ones may need steering back to them. Reading the word list through once more usually does it.