Toddler Arabic Week 1: Colors — الألوان (il-alwan)

Part of the Toddler Arabic series — one toddler-sized topic each week, taught realistically in the cracks of a busy schedule.

The focus this week is colors — the thing he already points at all day anyway. I'm planning to keep it embedded in normal life: crayons, toys, shirts, and one homemade game (below) that cost exactly zero dollars. No sit-down lessons; just naming colors out loud until they stick.

This week's words

• أحمر (ahmar) — red
• أزرق (azra') — blue
• أخضر (akhdar) — green
• أصفر (asfar) — yellow
• بنفسجي (banafsaji) — purple
• زهري (zahri) — pink
• برتقاني (burtu'ani) — orange
• أبيض (abyad) — white
• أسود (aswad) — black

A little dialogue we use

Me: شو هاللون؟ (shu hal-lon?) — What's this color?
Him: أحمر! (ahmar!) — Red!
Me: برافو حبيبي! وهادا؟ (bravo habibi! w hada?) — Bravo, sweetheart! And this one?
Him: أزرق! (azra'!) — Blue!

How we practiced

• The wipe-top color board: a DIY board made from cardboard and old diaper-wipe lids. I painted a color under each lid — he flips one open, and I say the color. He opens, I name, repeat forever. Zero dollars, endless entertainment.
• Color hunt: "Where's something ahmar?" around the living room — toddlers love a mission.
• Crayon narration: naming each color in Arabic as he picks it up, no pressure to repeat.
• Block sorting: making piles by color and naming each pile as we go.
• Car window game: calling out car colors on the drive — easy wins on busy days.

A closer look: our wipe-top color board

Here’s the little homemade game I mentioned up top. Every lid stays closed and plain white, so first we just look at the board and guess the color we think is hiding underneath.

First we guess the colors…

Then he flips the lid open and we check — purple, green, orange, pink, blue, or red. Part color lesson, part tiny surprise, every single time.

…then lift the flap to check!

If I’d been thinking ahead, I probably would have wrapped the cardboard in some pretty colorful wrapping paper to make the whole thing look a little more polished. But honestly? He had so much fun “painting” the cardboard instead — all those happy dabs of color you see are his handiwork — and the brushwork turned into a sneaky little hand-eye coordination workout. So the “messy” version kind of turned out to be the whole point.

Free printables & activities

Realistic Me's free Arabic Colors trace-and-color printable — a 6-page PDF (one page per color: red, blue, green, orange, pink, and purple) with the Arabic color word big and bright, a simple picture to color in, and a light-gray version of the word to trace for older learners. Print it on regular paper. Grab it below.

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My specific pick for colors: A Crafty Arab’s Arabic Colors Animal Poster — a bright poster that teaches the color words in Arabic, with each color actually written out in that color (starring the same lovable animals as their alphabet poster). Easy to point at on the wall and name colors together.

Color songs we're playing

From our Arabic songs playlist: الألوان (The Colors) by Adam Wa Mishmish is the color anthem of the week — short, catchy, and on repeat in the car. Bonus color word: عندي سمكة دهبية (3endi Samaki Dahabiyyi) sneaks in dahabi — gold.

And a straight-up colors lesson: Learn Colors in Arabic — For Babies & Toddlers (تعلم الألوان بالعربية) by Kalam Kids — simple, slow, and made exactly for little ones learning their colors. This is the one I keep coming back to: it lines up so much better with my two-year-old’s actual vocabulary level, and it’s very much a “Ms. Rachel”-style video. Ms. Rachel is our English show of choice around here, so this one feels like the Arabic counterpart to what he already loves watching.

And straight from Adam Wa Mishmish themselves: قوس قزح للأطفال 🌈 — The Rainbow Colors (Adam Wa Mishmish) — their bright little rainbow song. My go-to when we need a quick screen break that still sneaks the color words in.

Also on our watch list: أهلاً سمسم: لوحة بسمة وجاد الجديدة — an Ahlan Simsim (the Arabic Sesame Street) episode about Basma and Jad’s new painting. Not a song, but a sweet little colors-and-art tie-in for the week. Fair warning: this is the most advanced of everything I’ve linked here — the Kalam Kids, Adam Wa Mishmish, and Kiki wa Nadoush videos are much more toddler-level, while this one is a full episode. I’m keeping it in the mix as more of a stretch, aspirational watch we can grow into.

How it actually went

The lift-the-flap board was a genuine hit. He loved flipping the little lids open, and he’d laugh every single time I named the color as he opened one. If I’m honest, I don’t think it was really about the colors — it was more the cause-and-effect thrill of it: “I do this, and Mom does something!” But I’ll happily take it. It’s turned into a little toy he pulls out every so often, and it’s officially in the rotation as something he just plays with.

The block game was a win too. Sorting the blocks into color piles, he was much more willing to actually try to repeat the words back to me.

Stuck / flopped:

Having to explain that "blue" changes with the gender of the noun it describes — azra' for masculine, zar'a for feminine. Fail on mom's part: I don't do gender agreement well myself, so I fumbled the explanation and probably taught him a few wrong pairings along the way. We'll fix it together later.

The hardest part, by far, was that Arabic color words change form depending on grammatical gender — whether the thing you’re describing is masculine or feminine. That just doesn’t exist in English, so it does not come naturally to me at all. I kept defaulting to the masculine form (the version I originally learned) and basically guessing my way through. At one point my husband actually shouted from the kitchen that what I’d just said wasn’t right! So I did what any tired mom would do and shortcut around it: I’d point, say an enthusiastic “Yeah! Azra’!” (blue!), and keep the game moving.

I also didn't love how much I had to depend on the screen time this week. It was a busy work week with a toddler at home, so these things are going to happen, but wasn't a huge win having to plop him in front of the TV more than I would have liked.