Norwegian glues words together, and SOLHATT is a sun plus a hat

This grid hides six Norwegian words for things you wear or carry: a mask, a badge, a bracelet, a sun hat, a vest and a purse. Each has a picture beside it, so nobody has to guess at the meaning. The work is all in the looking — combing a row of letters until MASKE or VEST separates itself from the noise, then circling it. Beginners tend to sweep up the short words first and leave the long ones for last.

SOLHATT is the one worth stopping on. Norwegian joins words where English keeps them apart: sol is sun, hatt is hat, and the two run together into a single word. PENGEPUNG is built the same way. ARMBÅND brings in a letter English does not have, the å, sounded roughly like the o in for — and spotting it inside a grid is the gentlest way to make an unfamiliar letter feel ordinary.

Print it while your child is getting dressed and name a few things aloud as they go: a hat, a bracelet, a bag. The words settle faster when the object is in the room. The sheet takes about ten minutes, though there is no clock and nothing to score, so a child who wants to sit with it longer is free to. MERKE, the badge, is often the last one left.