Six German vegetable words, buried in a grid of letters

Six German words for things that grow in a vegetable patch sit inside this letter grid: BROKKOLI, MAIS, SALAT, SPINAT, ZWIEBEL and KÜRBIS. Beside the grid, a picture of each one — broccoli, corn, lettuce, spinach, onion, pumpkin — tells your child which word is wanted. The job is to match a picture to its word, then track that word across a row or down a column and ring it.

KÜRBIS carries an umlaut, and that dotted Ü is worth pointing out before anyone starts: in the grid it is a letter in its own right, not a plain U. MAIS is the shortest at four letters and usually falls first. BROKKOLI, at eight, takes longer, because the doubled K makes the eye slip. SALAT and SPINAT both open with an S, so it is the second letter that decides between them. A finger held under the row steadies the search far better than scanning from a distance.

This works well as a quiet ten minutes after a German lesson, or the morning after one, when the words are half-remembered and need a nudge. Nothing is timed and nothing is marked. If your child stalls, say the word aloud — hearing ZWIEBEL often shakes the letters into place. Print it, or work through it on screen, and let a real shopping trip finish the job.