I like to embed colors into everyday instruction, but I also take a couple of days to work explicitly with them. Here are some of my favorite activities.
Touchez un objet
Students have a lot of fun with this simple activity. I announce to the class to touch an object in the classroom of a particular color. This is great to do when you have a few minutes left over at the end of class.
Aujourd’hui le tableau est…
In the beginning of the year, I announce every day to the students what color the background of my SMART Board is. Over time, I make them tell me what color it is each day.
Colorful Creations
I first blogged about this in one of my Beg Borrow or Steal posts. Liz’s Lessons has a great Pinterest Board featuring student work. On it, she shared a drawing that a student made by writing the words of the colors they were using repeatedly. I have my students complete this activity in groups, but you could also make this a homework assignment.
Color and Shape Bingo
Here’s an activity I first blogged about in my post about French Club students becoming the teachers at an elementary schools. One of the activities the French Club students did was color and shape bingo. In addition to a bingo board and chips, each student got a sheet with all the shapes, all the colors, and examples of colored shapes. Most of the shapes are cognates, so the focus is put especially on the colors.
De quelle couleur est…
One easy way to review colors is to have students describe the colors of various cartoon characters. I especially like to use the Muppets, since they are so colorful.
Les monstres coloriés
I first blogged about this in a post about incorporating Parts of the Body. This is an activity that I tried once and never repeated because it proved too difficult for the level of students I teach. I think this would be a great activity for an intermediate class. Have students draw a monster in various colors, then write a sentence describing the color of each body part. It reinforces “est,” “sont,” and adjective/noun agreement.
What are some of your favorite activities to reinforce colors?
