Making Color Words FUN for All {FREEBIE}

I am so excited to begin a two-week color word study in my classroom on Monday. I enjoy every moment of our color word study. We do fun activities, sing songs about the colors, even dress in special colors throughout the study. The kids have a blast and so do I.

Each day over the next two weeks has a designated color. Monday is black day, Tuesday is brown day, Wednesday is purple day, etc. The schedule is announced ahead of time and students are encouraged to dress in the featured color each day. Over the course of the day, we do extensive word work dedicated to the color of the day. My kindergarteners are always buzzing about their favorite colors and they like to have reminders about WHEN we are learning about their favorite color. I created a set of color word reminder cards to help with this task. They have been displayed for several days already and  my students are pumped!

You can download the set of Color Weeks Calendar Reminder Cards for FREE on Teachers Pay Teachers. They are perfectly sized to fit on your classroom calendar. I printed mine on white cardstock and laminated the cards to make them extra durable. (Most of the printable items you see here are also available in my TpT store.)

Of course, I notify my parents about our color word study as well so they can help my students dress in the appropriate color each day. Readers often ask to see my note to parents so here is a snippet from this week's classroom newsletter:

As you might expect, some students in the class do not own clothing that matches our color of the day.  Sometimes parents forget as well. This is never an issue because the entire class receives a special accessory from me during our color days: a sight word watch. Annie Moffatt from The Moffatt Girls created an Ultimate Color Word Packet which includes her famous sight word watches. The set includes a watch for each color word. I copied mine on the appropriate color of construction paper, laminated, and cut to separate each watch. The watch collection is all lined up and ready for my students to wear during our two week color study.

You can buy Annie's Ultimate Color Word Packet on TpT.

We also have a lot of fun with music during our color word study. I play the song “Color Farm” from Dr. Jean's Sing to Learn CD each day that we learn about color words. Set to the tune of Bingo, the song assigns a color to different animals and spells each word. “There was a farmer had a horse and green was her name-o, G-R-E-E-N, G-R-E-E-N, G-R-E-E-N and green was her name-o.” I can never get the song out of my head but neither can my students (and that's the whole point of it. )

Inspired by Dr. Jean, I created a farm-theme Interactive book and poster-set to reinforce the spelling of each color word. This packet is an oldie-but-goodie and is the VERY FIRST Interactive Reader that I created.

As the title suggests, this printable set includes a 9-page student book (one page for each of the 8 basic colors plus a cover page) and a set of 8 coordinating posters to display in your classroom. I know how ink-conscious teachers are so the posters have blackline graphics for teachers to color themselves before posting in the classroom.

My own posters have been mounted on construction paper, colored, laminated, and are on display for next week!

You can buy the Color Word Interactive Farm Book and Poster Set from my TpT store.

The above photo also gives you a peek at my Color Word Classroom Signs {Black Series}. These are also available for purchase in my TpT store!

I also add a fun interactive center to my classroom for my early-finishers to explore. I used our school die-cut machine to cut laminated construction paper letters for spelling each coordinating color word. Next, I attached magnets to each letter. I place a the letters on small magnetic whiteboards in my classroom. My students love mixing up the letters to spell color words. Typically, the novelty of this activity only lasts about two weeks. At the end of our study, I pack the activity up and save it for next year!

My students have also fallen in love with Color by Number pages. I think they will be especially excited to do these activities once they no longer need to rely on classroom anchor charts to identify each word. I have a number of Color by Number activity sheets available for FREE in my TpT store. These are just a few that you will find!

Now that you know how I teach color words, I would love to know what special activities you do in your own classroom!