Have you played board games in your elementary Spanish class yet? I used to think the only way to use board games was to bust out Candyland during our colors unit. Thankfully my awesome colleagues introduced me to the idea of making the board games fit the content in our elementary Spanish curriculum.
Shout out to Sra. Schreiner & Sra. Gloudemans!
Why play board games in Spanish class?
My goal for using board games in class has always been to increase student engagement while giving them a reason to communicate in Spanish. Each turn provides an opportunity for a question/answer mini conversation. Nowadays my goal has shifted slightly to include intentionally teaching & practicing social skills, turn taking, & winning/losing gracefully.
What do you need to play board games?
What’s nice to have?
In order to set kids up for success, I like to provide a student resource page for kids when they’re playing board games in small groups. I either print off a copy for each group or make sure to have key vocabulary on the board while they’re playing. Even younger students are able to use the resource and feel more confident about their answers.
Teaching students how to play
I love to teach new games to students by playing it as a whole group first. We play “clase vs. Sra” starting in kindergarten. Then when they play in small groups they are familiar with the rules and able to play independently.
We occasionally play board games in small groups during the kindergarten year. That said, we play with small groups much more often starting in 1st grade.
Procedures for Play: Stories by Señora Style
Set Up–Whole Group
When I play a board game with the whole group, I put the game board on my google slides. *Since I move the game pieces around, you can’t play while in “present” mode.
I use a digital dice roller and switch back and forth between the tabs. To make it easy on myself, I just link the dice roller to an image of a die on my slide. A colleague (shout out to Srta. Younkle!) has kids roll a big die and that sounds fun as well.
For game pieces, I insert 2 shapes into my slides. Mine is always purple (my favorite color) so I don’t have to think about it.
Playing the game–Whole Group
When I play with the whole group, students always go first. I roll the digital die, move their game piece, and call on volunteers to say the term for the space they landed on. Then we go back and forth taking turns. I always play it up when I’m losing, trying to roll a bigger number. Kids love the competitive nature of the game even though I tell them it’s just the luck of your dice rolls. We also always say “buena jugada” or good game at the end.
I try to add in extra language that’s meaningful while we play. “Me toca a mí” & “les toca a ustedes”are a natural fit. I tend to say “la clase tiene tres” & “Señora tiene dos” after rolling and we always count the spaces out loud in Spanish.
Winning the game
In order to win, Señora’s rules say you have to roll the exact number needed. Looking at the sports board game below, the orange player needs a 1 in order to win. They have to roll a 1 or else they’re stuck until their next turn. This is a fun way to ensure an early lead doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll win in the end.
Set Up–Small Group
When playing with small groups, I copy the game boards on card stock or put them in plastic page protectors. I also have a bin with dice & game pieces (we always use ositos). *Foam dice are nice so you don’t hear a million rolling dice for the duration.
Playing the game–Small Group
Rules for the game are the same when playing in small groups. I like to have enough copies of the game board for groups of 2-3 students. That makes sure no one has to wait too long in between turns.
I find about 10 minutes is plenty for small group play. It’s important to make your expectations for Spanish use during the game clear. I always tell students I want to hear Spanish numbers and lots of the content words! Walking around and engaging with the groups helps students use lots of Spanish.
Paper vs. Digital Versions of the Board Game
The lovely virtual teaching of yore initially forced me to come up with a digital version of board games. I still use the digital version from time to time to mix things up from one unit to the next.
Our district uses Seesaw & it works well for board games! I just create an activity, upload the game board, add some game pieces and a digital dice video. I usually include a student resource page as a second slide in the activity. Take a look at this activity to see what I mean.
Make Your Own Board Games
If you don’t love creating resources like I do, please find a ton of board game options in my shop. If there’s a topic you’re needing and you don’t see it, please contact me! I’d love to make it for you.
That said, making your own board game isn’t too tricky. You can find blank game board templates on TPT. Then after you’ve collected images for your content, you just copy and paste them into the blank spaces. Give it a try! I bet your students will enjoy it as much as mine do.
Interested in other game ideas?
Tic Tac Toe is always a fun one!
Baamboozle is a fun online whole group game.
To read more about why I am mindful to include playing in my lessons, this post might interest you.
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I love collaborating with other elementary language teachers. One of the things I find most helpful is hearing about how others teach a certain concept or topic. I always seem to come away with new inspiration and a great idea to try. So, I’d like to share some ideas on teaching colors in Spanish.
I reflect on my general process for planning lessons in a separate post–check that out if it sounds helpful. Today my focus will be to go through my favorite ways to teach colors in Spanish at the elementary level.
Teaching Colors in Spanish to a Kindergarten Class
When teaching colors in Kindergarten, my teammates and I like to start with just a few colors and then we add more as we go.
If the timing works out, some years I start with just the fall colors (rojo, amarillo, anaranjado, verde, y marrón). We’ve enjoyed using this booklet and activities from Mundo de Pepita. It’s fun being able to connect words in their new language to the world around them. We’re in the Midwest so we get lots of beautiful colors during fall.
Other years it ends up that we’re not starting colors until after the excitement of fall has passed. In that case, we usually start with these 5 colors: rojo, verde, azul, amarillo, y rosado. A colleague (thanks, Sra. Burkel!) came up with a cute song that we use and she was nice enough to let me turn it into a video–check it out here.
Unit Pacing in Kindergarten
- Introduce & practice 5 colors: 2 or 3 lessons
- Add additional colors & practice: 2 lessons
- All colors: 4 or 5 lessons
- Review: 1 or 2 lessons
- *Assess: 1 or 2 lessons
Here are my google slides for the first 4 lessons to get you started!
*My PLC team and I have had many good conversations about the necessity of assessment (especially in kindergarten). Do we want to spend time on it here? How many colors are we expecting students to master at this time? Ultimately, since I’m responsible for teaching this power standard and putting grades on the report card, I do assess here. We expect them to be able to identify 5 colors by the end of this unit. Students who are partway to meeting the learning goal have more chances later in the school year to show me what they know.
Activities for Teaching Colors in Spanish
When I think about all the different kinds of activities I use within a unit, the list gets fairly long. Even though our lessons are only 30 minutes, each one is filled with several different activities.
I’d like to share many different activities for teaching colors with you–pick and choose what might work best for you and your students!
Mundo de Pepita Booklet–Arturo y la Bota
This is one of my all time favorite Mundo de Pepita booklets. Arturo goes fishing and catches different colored fish. I’ll let you guess what he catches in the end. 😃 Its simplicity is perfect for kindergarten students and the ending is silly and fun.
After we read the story as a whole group, I send students to their seats. We work on coloring the fish one at a time. I generally call out a color and have students find that color crayon and hold it up. That way students who need a little help can get on the same page before everyone starts coloring.
When using booklets with students, we always use them over a few different lessons. My favorite way to wrap it up is to bring a small stuffed animal for each student to read their story to. It is so sweet to see students sitting all over the classroom and hear them reading in Spanish to a stuffie.
Digital Matching Game–Whole group
As I said before, I often plan several activities for one lesson. I like to do quick whole group games at the start or end (or both!) of class.
Playing a matching or memory game is something we do often in my class. You can choose to just play one round or more than that if you have more time.
A volunteer student picks which number to look under and then everyone repeats the color after I move the cover. We make it into a cooperative game and see how long it takes to find all the matches.
Seesaw Activities
After working on a whole group activity, I find it important to transition students to some independent work time. The Seesaw app is a great tool for this. I linked two activities that are so fun to do with kindergarten or first grade students when working on Spanish colors.
Seesaw Activity: Color Scavenger Hunt *Seriously, this one is so fun. I walk around smiling to myself as I watch and listen to students gleefully taking photos of different colors around their classroom.
Seesaw Activity: Color Sort *Simple but effective. Students are asked to sort images based on their color. Each time they move an image, they should listen to the color word in Spanish. Great additional input!
Kahoot
Kahoot is a fun and techy review game to play towards the end of a unit. I wrote about teaching this game to my kindergarten students in a previous post–read more here.
For younger grades (kinder and 1st) I usually only create two answer options. Although I’m always reading the question and answer options for the class, this game also has students reading a fair amount so I prefer to keep it simple.
I find Kahoot to be energizing and engaging for students. It’s a fun way to connect spoken language with the visuals of the game. I also like that it’s a way for kids to answer on their own and for me to see how they’re doing with the content.
I use this Spanish colors Kahoot towards the end of our unit.
Colors of a Country
We set up our K-5 program to focus on one country during each year. Students learn about the culture and traditions of the country throughout the school year. One way we do that is by incorporating the country wherever we can!
Our kindergarten students learn about México so when we learn colors, we talk about the colors of México. In addition to talking about the colors of the flag, we talk about the colors we see in different pictures of México. Here’s an example of what I mean.
Books for Teaching Colors in Spanish
Oso Pardo, Oso Pardo ¿Qué ves ahí? by Bill Martin Jr & Eric Carle
I’ve always loved reading stories to students that they are familiar with in English. Their eyes always light up when I get out this book. Reading it in Spanish is such a fun way to work on colors and I appreciate that it adds the animal vocabulary as well. This is a fun one to have kids repeat after you as you read.
Isabel and her Colores go to School by Alexandra Alessandri
A new favorite for sure! We read this book last year and I fell in love with the story and illustrations. The author beautifully describes the languages of English and Spanish as being different colors. Several of my students connected with Isabel because they already speak Spanish and are learning English at school too. I highly recommend this book!
Videos for Teaching Colors in Spanish
I have a whole list of my favorite videos for teaching different topics in Spanish here. BUT! Here are two of my favorite videos for teaching colors.
Movement Ideas for Teaching Colors in Spanish
We know kids need to move (I wrote a whole post on that here) and I have a great movement activity to use with colors!
Color Freeze Dance
Choose a fun and bouncy dance type song and have students dance until you pause the music. Shout out a color and they have to find that color in the classroom before they freeze. I have students point to the color they found. Everyone repeats the color and then we all dance again.
Stand Up / Sit Down
So simple but a great way to review colors in Spanish. If you’re wearing…stand up! You can play until everyone is standing. OR Switch it up sometimes and say if you’re wearing…sit down. If they’re already sitting, they should stay seated.
This activity is perfect for when an activity wraps up and there are still two or three minutes left in class.
Recycle colors in future grade levels
One of my favorite things about teaching multiple grade levels is seeing students grow and be able to do more with each year. It’s important to recycle or reuse content they’ve learned previously so that they continue to work towards mastery. Plus, it helps students build confidence in their new language.
1st grade
After being introduced to colors in kindergarten, 1st grade students are ready to do more with them! It is super fun to have students share their opinions about the different colors. I love that their knowledge of the color words enables them to focus on using opinion phrases like “me gusta” and “no me gusta.”
We also use this I Spy game with the phrase “yo veo.” This is a perfect game to use whole group and then send kids off to work in pairs. I also use this game with sub plans (after kids are familiar with how to play).
A big part of our first grade curriculum is learning about the rainforest of Costa Rica. Students love learning to talk about and describe rainforest animals and we use colors as part of that description.
Lastly, we use a color story called ¿Dónde Vives, Dinosaurio? in 1st grade. It’s wonderfully simple and students enjoy answering the questions throughout the story.
2nd grade
A big part of our 2nd grade curriculum is learning to talk about school. An easy way to recycle colors is when we’re learning school supplies. Students do very well with describing their different school supplies, both the color and size.
Final Thoughts on Teaching Colors in Spanish
As teachers, we end up teaching the same or similar content for many years. One thing I’ve done to keep it interesting and more exciting for me each year is I switch up which activities I use.
After using the song, El Gusano Tutu, for several years, I wanted a change. We still listened to the song El Gusano Tutu but we spent more time reading and working with Oso Pardo. If you find yourself growing weary of a certain topic or activity, I encourage you to try something else that grabs your attention more.
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I come from a musical family. I’m sure that everyone who has married into my large extended family experiences the same “wow moment” the first time they hear us sing dinner grace in 3 or 4 part harmony. So, I grew up loving music and that love has followed me to my Spanish classroom. Plus, music and songs are such a fun way to use language! I incorporate music into my lessons as much as possible and whenever I’m teaching Spanish colors, we listen to El Gusano Tutu by Lauren Bruzonic.
There’s nothing sweeter than overhearing a little kindergarten student singing one of our Spanish songs in the hallway. Since they’re so catchy, learning songs is a wonderful way to start introducing young learners to a new language.
Getting Started with Teaching Spanish Colors
When I first start teaching colors, I show students simple slides of the color and have them repeat the Spanish word after me. I don’t find it necessary to say the English word at all here.
After they’ve heard and seen the colors several times, it’s time to find different colors around the room. It’s fun to have volunteers get up and show the class something in a certain color. “¿Dónde está algo rojo?” I also have students take out their artbox so they can find and hold up the correct color crayon.
Teaching a Song
I find it helpful to be really intentional when I teach a Spanish song to students. I learned part of this process from my days as a counselor at Concordia Language Villages in MN.
The first time I play a song for a class, we just listen as we watch the video. Then I play it again right away but I give students a job–something to listen for in the song. For example, I might have students raise their hand every time they hear the word “rojo.” Or one side of the room listens for “rojo” and the other listens for “azul.” Then switch!
Once students are familiar with the tune, it’s time to start learning the words line by line. The first few times, I have students repeat the spoken words after me.
I might say:
“Clase, repitan, Él es rojo.” (they repeat)
“Él es rojo.” (repeat)
“Él es verde.” (repeat)
“Él es verde.” (repeat)
Next I have students repeat after me singing the lines. Then we sing those two lines together slowly a few times before we continue with the next two lines.
This song is fairly simple but keep in mind that for longer or more complex songs, it’s okay to just teach part of the song.
Activities to Use with El Gusano Tutu
As students are working with this song, there are some fun activities that can help extend the learning.
Scarves
This first idea came to me from a colleague, the lovely Sra. Stauber. She gives all her students different colored scarves. When they hear their color in the song, they get up and wave their scarf–how cute! You wouldn’t have to use scarves; you could pass out colored cards or have students hold up a crayon or marker. I love that this activity has students actively listening to each color word in the song.
Coloring
Next up is some sort of listening/coloring activity. I find it important to give students a task at their seat that moves the focus of our lesson from the whole group to solo. This activity invites students to try and find the correct color on their own while providing a safe environment full of support if needed.
Most years I’ve used this coloring worksheet with this song. I ask students to color in one color at a time. Before coloring anything, I tell them the color and have students hold it in the air. Students who aren’t sure of the color can check those around them. *I let kids choose the color of the head and feet, ps.
Once the group is done coloring, you’re all set to listen to the song again while pointing to the different colors on their page!
For those who want a more in depth activity, I have a Gusano Tutu booklet in my shop. I use the booklet in much the same way as the worksheet, but there’s an option available for students to write in the color word as well. I also like that once it’s complete, students have a “book” they can take home and share with their families.
Mini Talent Show
Depending on the personality of the students in your class, it can be fun to have a “Sing Off” or “Mini Talent Show.” Once students know the song well, they get into groups to practice singing it on their own. Then groups/students that want to can present their version of the song to the class. It’s a fun way for those kids who enjoy acting to shine. I also love that it gives the class additional target language input.
Final Thoughts on Teaching Spanish Colors with Gusano Tutu
After students learn and work with a song in my class, we probably listen to it every other lesson or so as we continue with other unit activities (I see students three times a week). Hearing and seeing the colors in the context of a song is so beneficial to our young learners.
I also bring back some of our favorite songs throughout the school year to mix things up for our welcome song or as a brain break. For example, if we’re learning about México and talking about the colors that we see in photos, I might start that lesson with Gusano Tutu.
I encourage you to give El Gusano Tutu a try as you’re teaching Spanish colors this year. Don’t forget to sign up for our email list and save a copy of the FREEBIE!
