A grid full of German spring: a chick, a tulip, a bicycle

Six spring words are tucked into this grid, and the pictures — a chick, a caterpillar, a tulip, a nest, a bicycle — say what each one means. NEST is the gift here, spelled identically in both languages, so your child has one word found before they have properly started. TULPE is near enough to guess at sight. The other four repay a slower, more careful look along the rows.

HÄSCHEN is the little rabbit, and it shows off something German does constantly. That ending, CHEN, turns a thing into a small and fond version of itself — a young rabbit rather than a grown one. KÜKEN, the chick, carries a Ü, and children read straight past two dots without seeing them. Worth pointing out before the search rather than after, since a missed umlaut turns a found word into a wrong one.

FAHRRAD runs to seven letters with a double R in the middle, where its two halves meet: FAHR for riding, RAD for wheel. RAUPE, the caterpillar, is the one to watch, since its letters are common enough to appear half-formed all over the grid. Print this in a week when you plant something or find a nest in the hedge, and the words attach themselves to a real morning rather than to a page.