Unit – Japanese Colours

1. Show Words & Practice
   Ideally you’d have some flash cards of the class objects to explain and show. When showing a color and getting them to repeat it also helps for them to come up with an object that is of that color. For example when showing the color aka, ask students ‘what is something that is aka?’ Hopefully students will come up with some ideas like apples, mail boxes etc. Students may need some prompting.
2. Activity
   • Race & Touch
     This is a running around game. So if you have room for students to run around inside that’s great otherwise outside is an awesome alternative. Teacher says a color and a body part. An example would be something like, elbow and midori. Students then find something of that color, like grass, and touch it with their elbow. This is usually a fun game especially for the younger ones. Ideally outside setting is best. Most students are more than happy to be outside rather than inside the classroom.
   • Take Away
     Using the 6 Japanese colours slide or 10 Japanese colours slide, as a class play the game ‘take away’
3. Worksheet – Draw Colors
   Students should have some idea of what to draw when you introduced the colors. Students draw something in each box that matches that color. An example would be in the aka box a student might draw a strawberry or an apple.
4. If Finished
   If students are able to draw something in each color box, then a simple extension would be to ask them if they can draw 2 or 3 in each box. Alternatively if you have flash cards available memory is a great activity to play on the floor with students that are finished.

1. Show & Chant
   Re-show the colors to refresh students memory. A great way to get students to remember their colors is to give them a little chant. Saying both colors in Japanese and English will help. For example teacher says ‘aka red’ and students will repeat the same words.
2. Roll & Say
   Roll and say is memory refresher to get them not only to say Japanese but to want to say Japanese.  This game should be only a warm up activity and not take too long. Students sit in a circle on the floor and roll the ball to each other. Each time the ball is received the student says one color.
3. Balloon Air
   This is another fun activity for junior primary students. Sitting in a circle students will try to keep a balloon in the air. If the balloon lands on the ground the last person has to say a word in Japanese, in this case a color. To make it more challenging you could get students to say an object in that color. For example a student might say murasaki, grapes.

1. Games 
   A quick review again reinforcing color in Japanese and color in English. For example ‘aka red’.
2. Worksheet
   Either Color Me In – Elephant or Color Me In – Butterfly worksheet.

Option A or B – Japanese Sentence + Animal in Japanese

Option C – True or false

1. Assessment
   If you are interested in setting up an assessment for students it can be done in the following way. Using the worksheet provided,  the teacher will say the animal and also the color in a sentence. Students will then color that animal said in the color the teacher stated. For example, if a teacher said ‘the dog is aka’ students would color the dog in red.

Options

A. Japanese Sentence
If you think this is a little too easy for your students you can make it a little more difficult by using the Japanese sentence ‘dog wa aka desu.’ This way students will have to listen a little closer for the color.

B. Japanese Sentence + Japanese animal
A step up from this would be including the Japanese animal word in the above sentence. For example inu wa aka desu. This would only be done if you have already taught the animal words. This could be included as an assessment for both Japanese animals and colors.

C. True or False
An alternative and easy way is to do a true or false assessment. Students could either draw a smiley face if true or a sad face if false. Teacher would say a statement describing the picture with its real color. For example teacher says ‘bananas are kiiro’. On the banana picture students draw either happy or sad face.

Japanese Achievement Standards

• Participate in guided group activities such as games, songs and simple tasks, using movement, gestures and pictures to support understanding and to convey meaning
• Participate in shared listening to, viewing and reading of imaginative texts, and respond through singing, chanting, miming, play-acting, drawing, action and movement