Posted by
Taryn on Saturday, May 28th 2011
Afrikaans is a gently learned subject here in our home. We try to read aloud Afrikaans books regularly, learn some vocabulary and Kiera is running through a simple Intro to Afrikaans book. We probably should do more, but the reality is not as close to the ideal that I’d like.
Ideally, I’d like for us all to learn together, but expecting a four and six year old to learn another language through reading and writing is a bit ambitious. And, truth be told, I’m not very good at being more creative. But (!) every now and again my creative juices flow just enough to see me and kids enjoying a new spin on things.
This week was one of those weeks and because we had fun, and because I appreciate how much I learn from other blogging moms’ ideas, I thought I’d return the favour by posting our simple Kleure lesson.
Introducing Colours in Afrikaans: Kleure
First I got the kids to cut out large circles of colours that I had traced onto card. We talked about their Afrikaans names as we cut. Sam was very doubtful about his cutting ability, but he did great!
Then we played a series of games with our colour circles.
1. Naming the colours
We talked about their names, I wrote them on a sticker and they stuck their sticker in the correct colour.
2. Pointing and naming
I asked them in Afrikaans to show me the colour that characterized certain things. Wys vir my, wat is die kleur van die son? etc. If they didn’t understand the noun (eg ‘son’) they had to ask “wat is ‘son’?”. Once they understood, they’d point to the colour and say it’s name (Geel!) they took turns doing that and loved it! Sometimes I’d add in more colours, like ‘Watter kleure het ‘n vuur?’ And sometimes I had them point together which was fun but also potentially problematic (that’s not fair! You pushed me!) sigh.
3. Find the missing colours
All eyes closed! Sneaky mom hides one colour and they each take turns guessing, in Afrikaans, the missing colour. That was enormous fun.
4. Kids’ turn to ask questions!
Each had a turn to hold the colours and ask questions about the colour they were holding.
5. Alphabetical order
Our last activity for the morning was to arrange the colours into alphabetical order. Katie got this job. Kiera couldn’t contain her smarty-pants-edness and suffered banishment as a result! More sighs. Katie got an extra unexpected lesson in learning alphabetical order of words that begin with the same letter.
By this time we had spent a half hour immersed in kleure. It was time to turn our colours into balloons where they will stay this week. I plan to turn them around sporadically so that their names are hidden. That way we’ll have fun testing their knowledge. And we will give our activities another bash and gradually add more colours like ‘bruin’ ‘grys’ ‘pers’ and more.
I’m keen to hear other ideas of creative ways to teach Afrikaans vocabulary and more. So please share your ideas here!
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This post features on the South African Carnival of Homeschool Bloggers (SACH Bloggers) where South African home schoolers share experiences, ideas, philosophies and much more. You can join the carnival too by heading to the South African Carnival of Homeschool Bloggers sign up page. We hope you enjoy the carnival as much as we have! Click here to read the other Afrikaans and Language related posts in the carnival:
