Teaching Topic: Colors

Color Vocabulary Cards

Learning about animals can begin with first learning the words for the most commonly used colors. Use the Colors Vocabulary Set of our Vocabulary Flashcards to teach your students vocabulary words for this topic.

Phonics Fish

Want to simultaneously provide your students with animal vocabulary recall practice, while developing their phonics skills? Phonics Fish is a the card Go Fish with a special phonics twist! The back of each card has a phonics clue that increase students' likelihood of guessing which of their fellow players has the card they need to form a set.

To play this game, participants take turns using the sentence pattern "Do you have a _________________?" to try to collect a full set of 3 matching cards that they can then lay down on in front of them to score points.

This game offers many sets of cards for different learning topics. Phonics Fish Set C and Set D are make use of colors to describe the objects featured on each card.

Phonics Matching Tiles

Another option for simultaneously developing phonics skills while improving color vocabulary recall is to utilize our set of 12 color & shape Word Tiles.

This activity involves matching Phonics Sound Tiles to the sides of various Word Tiles. For example, a student would complete the 'red' Word Tile by matching a 'r' Sound Tile to the left side of the Word Tile, a 'd' Sound Tile to the right side, and an 'e' Sound Tile to the bottom.

Phonics Matching Tiles can be used for a variety of teaching demonstrations and various practice activities and friendly competitions. The set of 12 color & shape tiles has its own individual downloadable print file.

Body-Part Monster Cards (Deduction Game)

The Body-Part Monsters Card Game offers significant practice of both body-part and color vocabulary words. The wide variety of different colored body-parts on the monsters ensures that students will be able to make repeated use of colors in their communication while playing the game.

The sentence pattern "Does the monster have any _________________?" is used by the asker in this game, with different body-parts being systematically inserted into the blank. Color adjectives will need frequently be inserted into the blank, just in front of body-part nouns.

Clothing (Monkey) Cards (Deduction Game)

The Clothing Monkey Card Game makes frequent use of color to differentiate between different monkey's based on the types of clothing and colors of clothing that they are wearing.

The sentence pattern "Is the monkey wearing (a) _________________?" is used by the asker in this game, with different animals being systematically inserted into the blank. After using this sentence pattern to ask a question, based on the answerer's response, the asker can flip any cards that CAN'T be a match to the "secret card" face-down, until only one animal card remains face up.

Color (Book) Cards (Deduction Game)

This game uses a set of 16 multi-purpose Classroom Cards to play a deduction card game that primarily provides practice of color vocabulary.

The sentence pattern "Do you see a _________________ book?" is used by the asker in this game, with different colors being systematically inserted into the blank. Each card has a different combination of different colored books.

This game is an excellent way to have student to practice using color vocabulary and the cards can be used again in the future to play another game that uses a mix of clothing and color vocabulary.

Color (Food) Cards (Deduction Game)

The Color (Food) Cards Game makes use of color vocabulary to play a two-player deduction card game. While this set of cards can also be used to play a similar game involving food related vocabulary, this information (and the linked page) is about using the cards to play a game that just uses color vocabulary.

The sentence pattern "Do you see  _________________?" is used by the asker in this game, with different colors being systematically inserted into the blank. After using this sentence pattern to ask a question, based on the answerer's response, the asker can flip any cards that CAN'T be a match to the "secret card" face-down, until only one card remains face up.

Color (Object) Cards (Deduction Game)

This activity uses 20 shape-based image cards to play a deduction card game. Students will make frequent use of their knowledge of colors to play this game. While shapes are present, this particular game does not involve discussion the actual shapes on each card. 

The sentence pattern "Do you see _________________?" is used by the asker in this game, with different colors being systematically inserted into the blank.

After using this sentence pattern to gather information, the asker can flip any cards that CAN'T be a match to the "secret card" face-down, until only one card remains face up.

Flags Cut-&-Glue Game

The Flags Cut-&-Glue Kits can be used for an activity that allows English language learners to simultaneously practice colors, shapes, and positions, including "at the top of," "at the bottom of," "on the left side of," "on the right side of," and "in the middle of."

While students will get some exposure to various world flags, they do not need to know any names of countries in order to fully participate in this game.

Family Tree Builder Kits

Our system of Family Tree Builder Kits is designed to focus primary on family-member vocabulary words, but also includes practice of a few items of clothing, includes the words 'shirt' and 'sweater.' Often the only way to distinguish between two of the characters is to ask what color their 'shirt,' 'sweater,' or 'hair' is. Therefore students practicing their English with this activity will need to make frequent use of color vocabuary words.

Monster Body-Part Tiles (Deduction Game)

The Monster Body-Part Tile Game is another approach to providing colors vocabulary practice. The 20 printable Monster Body-Part Tiles can be combined into many different monsters featuring body-parts with a variety of different colors.

Played in partner-pairs of two, participants take turns being either the asker and the answerer. The answerer draws a single card from a set of 18 cards (but keeps it secret), while the asker lays out the 20 Monster Body-Part Tiles in front of them. The asker then needs ask a series of simple questions to deduce which of the tiles in front of them can be combined to create a monster that matches the "secret card" held by the answerer.

"Does the monster have any _________________ _________________?" is one of sentence patterns that can used by the asker in this game, with different colors and body-parts being systematically inserted into the blank. After using this sentence pattern to ask a question, based on the answerer's response, the asker can flip any tiles that CAN'T be part of the monster depicted on the "secret card," until only four monster tiles remains face up, one for each corner of the monster.

Nutrition Cards (Deduction Game)

The Colors & Nutrition Card Game allows students to practice categorizing foods by their nutritional categories and the colors that they could be. Although recommended for intermediate to advanced English language students who need to develop more complex vocabulary knowledge, this card game is an easy-to-learn and easy-to-play game suitable for learners aged 6 and older.

Played in partner-pairs of two, participants take turns being either the asker and the answerer. The answerer draws a single card from a set of 27 cards (but keeps it secret), while the asker lays out an identical set of 27 cards in front of them. The asker then needs ask a series of simple questions to deduce which of the 27 cards in front of them matches the "secret card" held by the answerer.

The asker can use sentence patterns like:

• "Could it be _________________?" (with different colors inserted into the blank)
  
  
• "Is it a type of  _________________?" (with different nutritional categories inserted into the blank)

After using this sentence pattern to ask a question, based on the answerer's response, the asker can flip any cards that CAN'T be a match to the "secret card" face-down, until only one nutrition card remains face up.

Petshop Role-Play

While our Petshop Role-Play activities do not specifically focus on color, the provided kits include animals that feature a variety of animals. For example, the octopi shown below in the example images are both blue and red and the fish are available in a blue/white combination and a blue/red/white combination. Students will be able to make some use of their color vocabulary knowledge while using these materials to practice buying-selling role-play scenarios.

"Train" Shape Builder Kit

This Cut & Glue Activity requires one partner in each partner-pair to attempt to construct a train engine from colored shapes while following the instructions of their partner.

This activity makes frequent use of color vocabulary words, in additional to words used to describe the different parts of the train engine.

What Do They Like? (Animal Colors)

Engage your students with this fun survey activity. The What Do They Like (Animal Colors) Activity is an great way for beginner English learners to simultaneously practice animal vocabulary words and colors, as they collect and record information about the colors liked by each animal character on their survey list.

This activity's materials include a master "answers key" and a variety of survey-taking sheets.