How to encourage children to say the colors in Spanish.

An Effective Way to Engage Preschoolers to Learn and Say the Colors in Spanish

This is the cover for the little book of colors.

Teaching a foreign language to young children is rewarding. I find it very interesting how young children can pick up on a new language so quickly. Having a native speaker or a native accent of the target language maximizes the possibility for the young learner to develop correct pronunciation and intonation.

My students and I have lots of fun learning the colors. We do different activities revolving around colors which I will share here.

So here are some of the activities we do:

1. Select a color to work on. (Let's use the color orange for example). (You can decide how long you want to work on a color or colors before moving on to next color or colors) 

2. Put several items of the same color you are working on and other colors as well in a box or basket. Take out the target color and show it to the students. Encourage students to say the target color in Spanish each time it is taken out. (Students like this activity very much because it keeps them engage and wondering what the next item will be). 

3. Another activity that I use is focused on having students learn to say yes in Spanish. I will show them the color orange for example and ask them in Spanish: "¿es anaranjado? then I will immediately say:¡Si! 
I will do that several time until students start saying "si" when I ask the question. (I use different colors for this activity)

4. Another fun activity we do is to go around the classroom finding things in the specific color we are learning.

For older children four to six years I created "Mi librito de colores" (my little book of colors) Students color and assemble the little book. As they color each brush stroke I encourage them to say the color in Spanish. (this activity can be done over several classes.) There are 11 colors in total in the booklet.

The size of the little book after it is assembled is 8½ by 5½

This is the cover page to "Mi Librito de Colores"

Here the students are coloring their little book of colors

This is how it should look once the book is assembled.

After students are done assembling their little book of colors I encourage them to repeat all the colors in there. Here are two short videos with examples of that. Once a student does it, everyone wants a turn. It is great for reinforcement, speech and review. 

To purchase "Mi librito de colores" click here.

An excellent companion to "Mi librito de colores" is the Spanish song: "Más Colores" this song includes all the colors in the little book. It can be played and sung while the students are coloring and assembling the booklet.  
To purchase and/or listen to the sample of the song: Mas Colores click here