Ideas for teaching Colours, Weather & Numbers contributed by Gillian Ashton

Gillian writes: '

Colours

Play these games in the hall. Have a red, blue, yellow and green corner. Call out rouge, bleu, jaune or vert and the children have to run to the correct corner. Last one there is out.

Hide various objects (red, blue, yellow, green to start with) and ask children to find something rouge or jaune etc. When they have all found an object, ask the children to form a circle and ask them in turn to say what colour their object is (in French of course!). Then get all the children to pass their object to the child on their left. They should all have a different object and hopefully a different colour. Repeat two or three times. Alternatively you can ask all of the children who have something "rouge" to hold up their objects. (Tip: don't use balls - they usually end up being thrown around the hall!)

I have also tried a memory game. Place some different coloured objects on a tray (not more than six). Ask one of the children to close their eyes while you take away one of the objects. The child then has to say in French the colour of the object which has been taken away.

Weather

I brought to school some dressing up clothes eg wellington boots, umbrellas, raincoats, sunglasses, hat and gloves, pretend ice creams etc.

I introduced weather expressions such as "Il fait beau" with flash cards made by my daughter (age 6). The pictures were very colourful and appealed to the children. Children could make their own flash cards.

Once the children had been introduced to 3-4 weather expressions, I chose a child tell them what the weather was like today and asked them to dress accordingly. The children all enjoyed dressing up. You can use this idea to learn the names of clothes as well.

Finally, the children were filmed doing their own weather forecast in French. The children prepared a very simple script and I camcorded each one in front of a map of Britain. We made home made weather symbols which they stuck on the map with Bluetack.

Numbers

All children enjoy Bingo - especially in French! As soon as a child has a full house - get them to shout out any word in French.

Shopping is also a good game for learning numbers - especially la boulangerie. Make some pretend baguettes, croissants etc. from card and ask one child to be the customer and buy 4 baguettes for example. The shopkeeper and other children can all help to count them out. I found my children all appreciated having some real baguettes, croissants and pains au chocolats to try as well.

For younger children, make some number labels eg 1-6. The children wear their labels and stand in a circle. Call out a number in French eg 4 and throw a bean bag to a child wearing number 4. That child then has to shout out a number in French and throw the bean bag to a child wearing the correct number.

Using the labels again, ask in French for all the number fives to wave their hands, the twos to sit down etc.