Color Touch

Rating

Elementary, No prep, Active

How to Play

Delightfully, this game requires nothing more than a usual elementary school classroom or other colorful environment. As part of a normal color lesson, have the students get up from their desks. You, the homeroom teacher, and (if you want) the students take turns calling out color names. Then everyone has to find and touch that color. For example, you might call out "Blue!" or "Dark blue!" Wait until everyone has found and touched a (dark) blue object, then have them gather for the next color.

How to Use

Color lessons are usually for the little kids, so this works very well. There's no need to compete or award prizes; they just love running around the classroom. Generally you can only use each color once, and it's best to make things, like color cards you used for teaching, off-limits to keep it from being too easy.

Notes

Make sure to gather the students together and get them calm in between rounds, or things can degenerate over time. I let them know that they need to stay in the classroom (no running out into the hall!) and that things taken out need to be cleared away at the end of the round. It can be good to teach basic colors, play, then teach variations like "light" and "dark," or less-common colors like "gold" and "silver" and then play again. Be warned: no matter what you wear, sooner or later someone will come along and latch onto you as their color source; this can lead to American-football (or rugby, if you will) -style pileups.

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