Teaching colors in Spanish is most likely one of the first things you will do when teaching a new group of students. There are many ways to teach colors in Spanish and work them into your curriculum year-round. Here are a few of the ways that I teach colors both in my primary Spanish immersion class and could also be used in a Spanish FLES program.
Sorting, Classifying and/or Graphing: This is an activity that can be done in many ways: you can do it whole group, small groups, in pairs or as an individual activity. You can do word sorts or picture sorts or have students sort or classify actual objects. In the picture, you can see two different activities. One is a sort that we do as a class, I have used as a display in a pocket chart and used for brainstorming and writing activities. The second is some buttons— that students could sort by color. You could also sort Fruit Loops or M&M’s.
Games: I like to introduce the “game” ‘Veo, Veo’ to students…. we are able to look around the classroom and practice some describing work, questions and is also a great opportunity to use to size words (grande, mediano, etc.).
Color Crowns (Coronas de los colores): What young child doesn’t love making and wearing a crown? I don’t know many. I do not usually do a crown for every color. Sometimes I will let students tell me their favorite color and they do that crown or if you have a color of the week than you could work a Spanish color crown in for each. I have students color crowns, learn the vocabulary fo the objects that are color we are working on.
Mini Books (Libritos de los colores): These are great for emergent readers to be exposed to the color vocabulary and a basic sentence stem in Spanish. I really love these mini-books in Spanish because there is no gluing or stapling involved. Just one little cut and some folding– and one sheet of paper. These mini-book about colors could be used with grades 1 through Spanish 1.
I also use a variety of printables of the colors, so kids can get practice seeing and using the color words in Spanish in their reading, writing and vocabulary development. Some of the printables have sentences that beginner readers can use to practice and follow directions. For example; Colorea la manaza roja. Colorea el chocolate marrón . etc.
Year round I have Spanish color posters (8.5×11) that display the colors and we refer to them and use them often in class. They are great visuals and way to increase student vocabulary and understanding in Spanish.
How do you teach colors in Spanish to your students? Share your ideas or favorite activities.
