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TeachingEnglish Young Learners Activity Book
Activities
Activity 33: Swap the dot
Antonella Sartoris – Italy
Age: 5–8
15 minutes Large classes? No Mixed level? No
Materials: Circles of card. Each circle has either a colour or a number on it. Use actual colours
and write numbers (e.g. 5), rather than writing the words.
Organisation: Whole class.
Aim: To practise recognising and saying number words and colours.
Description: Each child has a card with either a colour or a number. The teacher calls out a
number and a colour. The children with these cards must stand up, shout out their colours or
numbers, and swap cards.
Preparation: You will need to prepare the card circles, depending on the number of children
in the class. For 20 children, you will need 10 colour cards and 10 number cards. The colours
can be red, yellow, pink, blue, green, black, white, grey, orange, brown, for example.
Procedure
1. Ask the children to stand in a circle and give each one a card.
2. Practise the vocabulary. You can do this by pointing to each card, saying the word and
asking the children to repeat; by saying a word and asking the child with the card to hold it
up; by going round the circle and asking each child to say their word, and so on.
3. Now play the game. Call out a number and a colour, for example, five and orange. The
children with these cards must come to the centre, shout out their words and then swap
their cards.
4. Repeat until all the children have swapped cards.
5. Now ask each child to say what is on their new card.
Notes
Once you have made the cards, you can use them to revise colours and numbers. You can also
write the colour or number on the back of the cards and use these to teach the written form.
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© British Council 2012