¡Hola profe! I don’t know about you, but I feel like the summer has just flown by! I can’t believe it’s time to start planning the first classes of the school year!
If you’re not sure where to start this year, here are some ideas that your students will enjoy:
#1: Spanish-speaking countries.
Teaching students about where Spanish is spoken in the world is a great introduction to any Spanish class! Even upper-level students could use a reminder! Learning about Spanish-speaking countries can help students see the value in learning the language by understanding that it is spoken in so many different places!
You could study the Spanish-speaking countries and their capital cities, monuments, important holidays/celebrations, foods, geographical features, famous people, and so much more! You could even assign your students a country and have them do a research project to learn more!
Here are some FREE Spanish-speaking countries resources to help you get started!
- Spanish-Speaking Countries Board Games
- Spanish-Speaking Countries Jeopardy Game
- Spanish-Speaking Country WebQuest
#2: Famous Spanish-speakers.
Researching famous Spanish-speakers can also be a great way to start the school year! Not only does this provide valuable cultural information for your students, it can be done in English for your Spanish 1 students and also a great way to ease your upper-level students back into using their Spanish after the summer!
Here are a few resources you could use to get your students researching famous Spanish-speakers:
- Famous Spanish-Speakers Culture Project
- Artists from Spain and Latin America WebQuest
- Spanish Music Project
#3: Cognates.
If you’re teaching Spanish 1, starting the year with cognates can be a great way to get started using Spanish from day 1 and bolster students’ confidence levels!
A really quick and simple (yet effective!) activity that I like to do with cognates is as follows:
- Make a list of cognates like artista, música, televisión, hamburguesa, matemáticas, etc.
- Distribute the list to students – you can print a worksheet, project them on your Smart Board, post them on your LMS, etc.
- Give your students time to guess the meanings of the words. You could have them do so individually or with partners. An alternative would be to make a game out of it – see who can get the most correct or who can complete the activity the fastest. I find that my students really like to be competitive, and making a game out of any activity leads to greater student engagement!
Then, I point out to my students that they were able to understand several Spanish words, already on the first day of school! Students leave that first class feeling confident in their abilities, setting a positive tone for the whole year!
Like the idea of a cognates activity, but want to save the time of making one yourself? I’ve got you covered! Here are some ready-to-use cognate resources to help you start the year off right:
#4: Partner interviews and presentations.
If you’re teaching Spanish 2 or above, a great way to help students review what they learned in previous courses and to get to know their new classmates is to do partner interviews and presentations. Here’s what I like to do:
- Choose the topic(s) that you’d like to review.
- Create a series of questions for students to ask a partner on that topic.
- Divide students into pairs and have them interview each other.
- At the end, have your students share something that they learned about their partner. I usually select a question at random for each student to answer!
- If you’d like, you could turn this into a larger assignment and have students create an informative poster, PowerPoint/Google Slides presentation, etc. about their partners!
Want to grab ready-to-print sets of preguntas personales that students can use to interview each other? Check them out here!
#5: Review games.
Review games are a great way to start off the year on a fun note! You can ease your students back into using Spanish while also seeing what they remember from previous years. This can give you valuable data about where your students might need extra support.
My students’ favorite games are board games and Jeopardy games! These group games are super interactive and engaging, and they ask to play all the time!
Like the idea of review games, but NOT the idea of creating your own? I’ve got you covered!
Grab ready-to-use board games here!
Shop Jeopardy games for PowerPoint and Google Slides here!
Check out this blog post for more review games that your students will love to play!I hope this was helpful! Please feel free to leave me a comment or send me an email if you have any questions! Have a wonderful week, profe!
Señora Q 