If you teach English to pre-school, kindergarten or elementary school children, then it’s likely you’ll run across plenty of units about colours in your textbooks. It’s a natural fit and that’s why you’ll want to check out these games, activities, lesson plans and worksheets for teaching colors in English.
Teaching Colors: Games + Activities
Top 15 Activity and Game Ideas for Teaching Colors in English
Are you ready to get to the best games for teaching colors? Keep reading for the top 15 options to choose from.
#1: Flyswatter Game
If you’re teaching colours to pre-school or kindergarten kids, then you’ll want to try out Flyswatter. The way it works is that you write a bunch of colours randomly on the whiteboard. Then, two students come to the front of the class and take a flyswatter.
Give hints that relate to one of the colours and the first student to slap the correct one gets a point for their team. Sounds like something you want to try out? Check it out here:
#2: Colour Idiom Activity
There are a ton of English idioms that have to do with colours. Some of them include:
- Green with envy
- Tickle me pink
- Red tape
- Beet red
- Black and white
- Black sheep
- Born with a silver spoon in his/her mouth
- Catch red handed
- Etc.
A fun activity that makes English colour idioms memorable is this one to try out in your classes. Find out all the details here:
#3: Colours in an ESL Speaking Lesson
It’s easier than you might think to plan a lesson about almost anything, including colours. Check out this video for details about how to do that:
#4: Odd One Out
One of my favourite review games for colours is Odd One Out. The way it works is that you write four things on the board. Three are matching while one of them is not. For example:
- Cucumber, tree, eggplant, apple
There are certainly a number of possible answers. However, one possible one is eggplant because it’s purple while the other things can all be green. Check it out here:
Odd One Out ESL Vocabulary Game.
#5: Word Association with Colours
Unless your ESL students are absolute beginners like with pre school students, it’s likely that they’ve learned about colours before. A nice review activity that helps to activate their prior knowledge about this topic is word association.
It’s possible to use this activity with a variety of topics but in this case, students have to shout out words that are associated with certain colours. For example, yellow-sun or green-tree.
Find out all the details here:
ESL Word Association Vocabulary Activity.
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Bolen, Jackie (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 76 Pages - 11/28/2015 (Publication Date)
#6: Concentration Colours Game
One of the best colour games is this challenging memory one. In this case, you’d want to make some cards with colours and then the name of the colour.
In small groups, students have to spread out the cards face down and then it becomes a memory game as they try to find the matching sets. See all the details here:
#7: Colours Songs and Chants for Teaching Colours
If you’re teaching colours to preschool or kindergarten kids, then you’ll certainly want to take advantage of songs and chants in your lesson plans. If you’re not musical (like me!), the good news is that there are plenty of colour songs that you can find on YouTube.
#8: Dictation Practice With Colours
A simple, quick activity that helps students work on spelling and colours is dictation. For pre-school kids who are just learning to write, it may be as simple as saying the word and then having them write it down. For older kids, it may include saying a sentence with the colour in it.
Find out more about it here:
#9: Review Games and Activities for Teaching Colors
When you’re teaching colours, it’s all about review. This kind of vocabulary can be quite difficult for our students to learn because the names are quite abstract and don’t relate to each other or anything else for that matter. It’s straight up memorization!
If you want to help your students out with this tough task, consider using some of these ideas:
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Bolen, Jackie (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 110 Pages - 06/05/2020 (Publication Date)
#10: Word Challenge Spelling Game
If you’re teaching beginners, you may want to try out this colour spelling game. The way it works is that a student from each team comes up to the whiteboard. You say a word (a colour in this case) and the two students race to see who can spell it correctly first. Find out all the information about it right here:
#11: Chain Spelling
Another simple, fun spelling game is this one. It’s perfect for young learners. The way it works is that all the students have to stand up and then take turns spelling colours, letter by letter. If someone misses, they sit down are out of the game. The last person standing wins.
Here are all the details you need to know:
#12: Use the Test-Teach-Test Approach
Unless students are absolute beginners, they may already know many of the most common colours. You might want to consider using this fun approach to teaching English. Learn more about it here:
#13: A to Z Warm-Up Game
Unless you’re teaching pre-school kids, it’s likely that your students already know a good number of colours. A nice review activity to help them activate this prior knowledge is this alphabet game. Check it out here:
#14: Listening for Colours
A nice way to introduce an ESL unit on colours is to use a listening passage of some kind where various colours are mentioned. There are a number of things you can do with it but one nice idea is to have students listen for any colours that they hear. More information about this here:
Listening for One Specific Thing.
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Bolen, Jackie (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 81 Pages - 08/26/2021 (Publication Date)
#15: I Spy for Teaching Colors
This is a classic game that you can play with kids. Start it off by saying, “I Spy something that is (red).” Then, students have to guess what classroom object you’re talking about. The winner can choose an object for the second round.
#16: Describing People ESL Activities
Using colours is a common way to describe someone (brown hair, blue eyes, green shirt, red glasses). Here are some of my favourite activities for teaching this unit:
How to teach colours for English learners
Online Practice For Learning Colors
If your students want to get some additional practice with learning the colours in English, there are plenty of fun games they can play online. Here are two of the best sites to direct them to:
ESL Color Lesson Plans
If you teach preschool or kindergarten kids, colors is certainly a topic that you’ll see plenty of times. Here are some of the best ESL lesson plans for teaching colors to young learners:
Teaching Colours Worksheets
If you’re a teacher, then I’m sure you like to save time. A big way to do that is to use ESL color worksheets that other teachers have already made! No need to reinvent the wheel, right? Here are some of the best resources:
Did you Like these Teaching Colors in English Games and and Activities?
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Smith, Jennifer Booker (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 134 Pages - 03/31/2016 (Publication Date)
Yes? Thought so. Then you’re going to love this book that you can get over on Amazon: 101 ESL Activities for Kids. The key to better English classes with children is a wide variety of interesting, engaging games and activities and this book will certainly help you get there in style.
There are dozens of student-centred, engaging and interactive activities that you can use in your English classes. The students will love them and your lesson planning will be quick and easy. It really is possible to have fun ESL classes!
Head over to Amazon to pick up a copy of the book today. But, only if you want to get yourself a serious dose of ESL teaching awesome in your life:
Have your Say about Teaching Colours in English
Do you have any tips or tricks for teaching colors for English learners? Or, another activity or game recommendation that you’d like to share with us? Please leave a comment below and let us know what you think. We’d love to hear from you.
Also be sure to give this article a share on Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter. It’ll help other busy English teachers, like yourself find this useful resource.
Last update on 2022-07-17 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
