Colour by numbers
Overview
Purpose
Vocabulary acquisition
Learning outcome
Students recognise and show understanding of colour and numbers vocabulary in Japanese.
Skills
- Reading
Type
Individual activity
Related units in Hai! kit
- Unit 3 Denwa bangoo wan an desu ka
- Unit 8 Petto wa
Instructions
Materials
To download the template, select from the following Word or PDF formats:
- Colouring picture template for 'Colour by numbers' activity (Word, 100KB)
- Colouring picture template for 'Colour by numbers' activity (PDF, 37KB)
Steps
- Give each student a copy of the picture template.
- Teach the Japanese words for the eight colours to be used – yellow, red, white, blue, black, brown, green, and pink.
- Students colour in the picture using the following key:
- 1 = kiiro
- 2 = aka
- 3 = shiro
- 4 = ao
- 5 = kuro
- 6 = chairo
- 7 = midori
- 8 = pinku
The star border is to be coloured as shown in the numbered stars.
Colour vocabulary
In this activity, the Japanese colour words are used in the noun form. However, in the Hai! kit they are taught in the adjectival form, which has an 'i' at the end (such as kiiroi, akai). When they are changed to nouns, they loose the final 'i'.
Note that midori and pinku belong to a different category of adjectives, so they keep the same spelling in both forms.
Tips
- Before copying the template, fill the speech bubbles with Japanese greetings or something suitable (for example, about the flowers). Alternatively, ask the students to write their own greetings in the bubbles.
- For areas where no colour is specified, code them yourself, or ask the students to choose their own colours.
- This activity can be used for in-class differentiation or homework. It is an ideal activity for homework since it can be time consuming to complete. Reducing it to A5 size when copying makes it faster to colour.
Variations
- Give the picture with no numbers to the students to make up their own colour code (written in Japanese) and then swap with a partner. This enhances their learning of colours vocabulary.
- Students draw their own pictures to swap with others to colour in, based on vocabulary taught previously (such as classroom objects).
Further learning
- Write the numbers in kanji instead of numerals.
- Using Unit 12 Hana ga takai desu, talk about hair colour and clothes, or favourite colours.
Language to use
- Hajimemashoo.
Let's start! - _______ wa eigo de nan desu ka.
What is _______ in English? - _______ wa nihongo de nan desu ka.
What is _________ in Japanese? - Yoku dekimashita.
Well done!