Teaching Kids: Colours

When it comes down to the basics of teaching kids English as a second language...there is no easy route. Teaching kids who are absolute beginners, with no English capabilities whatsoever is challenging, but it need not be stressful nor too difficult to organize some simple and fun lessons to grab and hold their interest. One cool beginners lesson you can call to action is of course teaching colours.



I have two songs/video's with action plans for you to follow. These will help to  make learning colours a bright and enjoyable experience.

The first colours lesson that I will show you today is "I See Colours Everywhere", by ELF Learning. This is an extra cool activity because not only does it teach the basic colours but it also teaches some basic hello and goodbye vocabulary.

Part 1: Teaching Kids The "I See Colours Everywhere" Song

• Start the class by pointing to different colours around the room...it could be items but I find pointing to the different colours of the kids clothes works well. If you have access to a colour printer, you could also print out a colour chart or a colourful picture to use, but using everyday items around the room is fine if you can't easily get the extra materials.


• Make sure that they repeat the colours after you, as you say each one. The colours used in this song are: red, blue, green, pink, orange, brown, purple, yellow, black and white


• After you have practiced this for 10 minutes say these words from the song, making sure you mime out the actions as you speak. "I see colours everywhere, I see colours everywhere, I see colours everywhere, what colours do you see?" This is simple to mime out...it really doesn't take much thought...I (point to yourself) see (point to your eye and then hold your hand above your eyes like you are searching for something) colours (point to the colours that you used in your warm up) everywhere (throw your arms out pointing everywhere) etc.


• Now bring in the video. I always let the kids watch once or twice so they can take it all in.


• You will find they have usually automatically started to join in, which is great...but on the 3rd run of the video make sure that they try to sing along, complete with actions to help them remember.

Here's the "I See Colours Everywhere video, by ELF Learning

Part 2: Practicing The Vocabulary

• After a couple of run throughs of the song, sit the kids in a circle.


• Start off yourself so the kids can see what to do.


• Point to an item of clothing that the student sitting next to you is wearing and sing... For example if they are wearing a red shirt and blue shoes, point to the shirt saying "red, red hello red" and the shoes saying "blue, blue hello blue" and then "red, red goodbye red" and "see you later blue", whilst waving goodbye.


• This student must now do exactly what you did, but to the student sitting next to them, and hopefully using different colours.


• Remember that absolute beginners are just that...absolute beginners, so chances are they are going to need some help.

Once you have made it all the way round the circle (if you have a big class better to split them into small groups) See if you can sing the whole song again without the music whilst randomly pointing to different colours.

Part 3: Drawing a picture

Hand out some paper with a couple of packs of coloured pencils or crayons and get the kids to draw using their favourite colours. Try and get them to use their imagination. I find that children in China are so used to being told exactly what to do, say and draw etc...that when you ask them to draw what they like...they get very confused. You can give them some examples by drawing something like a blue and white beach, with a green and brown tree that has red apples on it...but make sure they don't just copy you. When you are teaching kids, you want them to start using their imaginations. Give them 5 or 10 minutes to do this and then go around asking the students..."what colours do you see?' (like in the song) point to some colours they have used in their pictures and see if they can answer you.

Part 4: Finishing Up

When you have finished checking the kids drawings and colour knowledge, play the song again with the kids all singing and performing the actions to finish up the class. Teaching kids ESL can really be a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy the lesson which couldn't be possible without the efl learning site providing such a great tune.



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