Cake, balloons and ice cream: the Norwegian words for a summer party

Six Norwegian words sit in this grid, all of them things you would meet at a summer party: a cake, a balloon, a flag, a glass of lemonade, an ice cream, and USA itself. The pictures do the translating, so your child's job is purely to hunt — read along a row, notice the letters lining up, circle the word. At three letters, USA is the quickest find on the page and a good one to start with.

Two of the six show how Norwegian builds and borrows. ISKREM is nothing more than is and krem pushed together, ice and cream, which children find satisfying once someone points it out. BALLONG and LIMONADE are older borrowings, close enough to English to be guessed but spelled the Norwegian way, and noticing that gap is half of learning to spell in a new language. FLAGG keeps a double g at the end.

Use it in the run-up to a fourth of July party, or any time you want a set of Norwegian nouns that are all either edible or festive. Six words is a comfortable sitting for a five- or six-year-old. Afterwards, put the finished sheet on the fridge; a child who walks past KAKE a dozen times will know it without ever being tested on it once.