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Spanish beach ball toss

Skills
This game is sure to catch on as a playful way to learn color words in Spanish.

You'll Need

  • Beach ball with colored sections
  • Masking tape
  • Sharpie marker

Time

10 minutes

Learning Stages

By Susie McKee

Teacher

Susie McKee is a mom, an artist and an art teacher. She has been teaching for 14 years and loves her current position as the K–5 Art Teacher at Nea Community Learning Center, a public charter school in Alameda, California. Susie is inspired by the art all around us and is always on the look out for new ideas to use in her projects at home and at school.

Your kids will have a ball learning Spanish colors with this beach ball toss game. It's a fun way to get some Spanish language learning into their playtime.

Setup

  1. Place a strip of masking tape on each colored section of the beach ball.
  2. Using a Sharpie, write the name of each color of the beach ball in Spanish on the masking tape. (Writing the words will help kids learn the Spanish words.)

red = rojo
orange = anaranjada
yellow = amarillo
green = verde
blue = azul
white = blanco

Spanish beach ball toss

  1. Play catch with the beach ball. When the catcher receives the ball, they must look at what color their right thumb is on and call out that color in Spanish.
  2. Player with ball then throws it to another player and play continues.
  3. Play for about 5 minutes, or as long as interested. 
  4. Play again the next day and if it is easy, remove the tape and have players play using only their memories.

Note: This game can be fun just for the sake of playing, but if little learners need more incentive, award a point for each time a player says the correct color during their turn. (Remove masking tape before playing this version.