Shape words in Italian: four flat, two solid, all in one grid

Half of this sheet is flat and half is solid. QUADRATO is the square, RETTANGOLO the rectangle, OVALE the oval and ROMBO the diamond; CUBO and PIRAMIDE are the three-dimensional pair. A child hunting these down in the grid is practising maths vocabulary and Italian at the same time, which is unusual to get from one page. The pictures carry the meaning, so a child who cannot yet read Italian is never stuck.

CUBO is four letters and goes first almost every time. RETTANGOLO is ten and needs a proper sweep of the rows before it gives itself up. The pair to keep an eye on are OVALE and ROMBO: both five letters, both ending in a vowel, and easy to confuse when a child is scanning at speed rather than truly reading. PIRAMIDE, at eight letters, is usually spotted by its opening rather than as a whole.

It sits neatly beside a shape-sorting session, and the picture strip does half the sorting already — the square, the cube, the pyramid, the oval. Say each word as it is ringed: QUADRATO takes its QU as kw, so it opens kwa. Children who already know the English shape names tend to finish this one alone, which makes it easy to hand over. That is worth having on a busy morning.