八种颜色
Bā zhǒng yánsè — Eight Colours
📐 Standards alignment
ACTFL World-Readiness: Communication (interpretive, presentational) · Cultures (colour symbolism in Chinese communities) · Connections (colour vocabulary shared with art class)
Can-Do targets (NCSSFL-ACTFL, Novice Low):
- I can name colours when I see them.
- I can point to something when I hear its colour named.
- I can notice that every colour word ends with the same syllable.
Learning objectives
- Say all eight colour words out loud
- Touch something of a named colour within a few seconds
- Recognise 色 sè as the ending that means “colour”
Materials
Crayons or coloured objects if you have them — otherwise the room itself works perfectly.
Prior knowledge
Units 1–2 — greetings, and the four tone gestures.
Key vocabulary
红色 黄色 蓝色 绿色 白色 黑色 粉红色 橙色
Greet the room in colour
Start with 你好！ as always. Then look around together and count how many different colours you can see from where you are sitting — in English, for now. Five? Ten? By the end of this lesson your child will be able to name eight of them in Chinese.
Every colour ends the same way
Here is the shortcut that makes this unit easy. Chinese colour words are built like this: a colour word, then 色 sè, which simply means “colour”. So 红 hóng is red, and 红色 hóngsè is “the colour red”. Point this out once and your child will hear it in all eight words.
Eight colours
Each card is the colour it names. Tap to flip, and press 🔊 to hear it.
Say it, then find it
Work through the eight cards one at a time. For each: your child says the word, then has ten seconds to find something that colour and put a hand on it. Eight words, eight objects. Anything counts — a sock, a book, the sky out the window.
Memory game — find the pairs
Match each colour word to its meaning.
Find the matching pairs!
Listen and choose
Press each play button and pick the colour you heard.
1. Press play. Which colour?
2. Press play. Which colour?
3. Press play. Which colour?
The colour hunt
A grown-up calls out a colour in Chinese — 蓝色！ — and everyone races to touch something that colour before a count of five. Anyone still searching at zero does a silly dance. With a class, split into teams and keep score; at home, the grown-up should play too and lose occasionally.
Show what you know
1. What does the ending 色 sè mean?
2. Which one means red?
Eight colours down
Your child now has eight colour words and knows the 色 pattern that holds them together. Next lesson turns them into a real conversation: asking what colour something is, and saying which one you like best.
Take it home
Colour of the day
Pick one colour each morning. All day, every time you spot it, say it in Chinese. Write or draw what you found in each box.
The red hunt
Red, 红色, is the colour of luck and celebration in Chinese culture. Count how many red things you can find in your home. Is it more or fewer than ten?
I found red things.
Ask a grown-up if any of them are red on purpose.
Note for teachers & parents
Eight is a lot. Four solid colours beats eight shaky ones. If your child is tiring, stop after 红色, 蓝色, 黄色 and 绿色 and save the rest for a second sitting.
Watch for: 绿 lǜ uses the rounded-lip vowel that English does not have. Have your child say “ee” and then push their lips into a whistle shape without changing the sound. Close enough is fine at this age.