Color, Color! Touch Red and You're Safe

A preschool version of the traditional Spanish game “Color, color”: the tagger calls a color and everyone runs to touch something that color on the playground (a door, a flower, a T-shirt) to be safe. It practices noticing the surroundings, running and decision-making.

How to play

1. We walk around the playground looking for colors: “What's green here?”; we touch the bench, the trash can, the tree (2 min).
2. The teacher is “it” and sings out “Color, color...!”, children answer “What color?”; the teacher names one and everyone touches something that color, no tagging yet (2 min).
3. Now the teacher chases while kids look for the color; anyone tagged before touching it joins the teacher as “it” next round (3 min).
4. The children who are “it” choose the color and call it themselves (3 min).
5. Special round: “The color of my clothes!” Kids must touch a classmate wearing something that color (1 min).
6. Calm color walk: each child whispers one color they found (1 min).

Rules

• I touch something of the called color and I'm safe.
• We all answer “What color?” together.
• If I'm tagged, I'm “it” next round.
• We touch playground things that aren't ours gently.

Variations

Adaptations

• Limited mobility: the child holds a card with several colors that counts as “something that color,” and classmates can come touch it.
• Color blindness: the teacher pairs the color with an object (“red like a fire truck”), and touching a buddy who found it counts.
• Autism: walk a route beforehand with the colored objects and review them together.

Learning goals

• Notice and name colors in the surroundings.
• Run toward targets they have to find.
• Play a traditional game and keep its chant.

Teacher tip

Walk the playground beforehand and remove anything dangerous that could count as “colorful” (fences with sharp edges, glass). Little ones tend to all touch the same thing: lots of things in the same color all count.

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