Whether your learners are beginners in primary languages or more advanced, introducing colours and revisiting colours are the places to start if you are linking language learning to a school celebration of “Bonfire Night”.
Below are activities that we know work and that are tried and tested. Different activities will suit different ages and stages of primary language learners. Consider encouraging other members of staff to do a specific activity with a class. Put the activities together and you have a short school assembly of target language Bonfire Night assemblies. Invite the wider community in to celebrate language learning and this link across the curriculum too.
Beginners (KS1 and LKS2) Word association and colours in a spoken poem.
First, play the drama game described in the video below.
Then ask the children to create a simple word association spoken English poem with the colours spoken in the target language and actions/mimes of their colours e.g. Blanco like the snow (children could mime snowflakes as they fall). Practise as a class and create a colourful performance.
Beginners (all year groups) sounds of colours’ physical firework display
We know this works and have been using this activity for many years. Joanne in the Twitter clip is leading a group of teachers through the activity at one of our PLN CPD sessions that we deliver. It’s all about thinking about the sound of the word and asking children to create a physical repsresentation of the sound of the word as a firework. she is conducting the teachers as if they are a class , indicating when groups should join in, stop, restart, make loud sounds, small sounds, build to a crescendo. Practise with your class target language colours. Divide your class into groups and ask them to work together with a colour. build a performance. Practise and generate a class performance of the sounds of the fireworks, nominating a child to be the sound orchestra conductor.
Create a performance song to a familiar refrain.
So easy and so effective. Select a familiar refrain (here we are using “The farmer’s in his den”), add the target language for fireworks and remind children of the actions they have created for their colours. Now create a firework and colours’ song with the class leading on how this is put together. The song is actually part of our Y3 Autumn 2 Bonfire Night lesson, if you are a network member, you can access this on the PLN VLE.
Moving on and advanced learners - a firework poem reading comprehension and performance
So sometimes the oldest and most loved activities are the best. Since early in 2000s we have been using this poem in French, German and Spanish to inspire young children . Teachers share the poem , unpack the meaning, look for nouns, adjectives and verbs and then children can practise and create a physical performance. children can use the poem as a template to create their own poems with different colours or if more advanced with a change of one of the verbs.
Here’s the blog post with step by step activity guide and the words in French and Spanish to the poem.
Fireworks performance poem blog post
