The German word for train is three letters. Find it.

ZUG is the train, and at three letters it is the shortest word on the sheet — which makes it, oddly enough, the hardest to spot. Short words simply vanish into a grid of scattered letters. Tell your child to take the roomier ones first, PUPPE the doll and LASTWAGEN the lorry, and to leave ZUG until their eye has settled properly into the rows and columns. It will turn up soon enough.

BOOT is a proper trap. It is spelled exactly like the English footwear and it means a boat, so the picture beside it is the only thing that will keep your child honest here. False friends are far better met on purpose than by accident, and a puzzle is a far gentler place to be caught out by one than a conversation with somebody who actually speaks German. MÄDCHEN, the girl, is the only word here wearing an umlaut — tell your child to hunt for the two dots.

LASTWAGEN comes to nine letters and is built from two pieces, LAST, a load, and WAGEN, a wagon. DRACHEN is the kite here, though the very same word also means dragon, and again the picture is what decides it. Print this when the toy box is out. Asking a child to fetch the PUPPE rather than the doll turns six circled words into something they will actually say aloud during an ordinary afternoon.