One way I practice the future tense is with the game MASH. It is a game I have fond memories playing growing up and many of my students are familiar with. By the end my students are always laughing about the futures that have been created for them while using the targeted future tense. I set aside about 45 minutes to complete this entire activity because I don’t want to rush the steps or run out of time for the interpersonal portion. The first step is having students write in 4 options for each of the categories. Since the letters of MASH don’t translate well into Spanish, I really just…
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Create Your Own Room with Jamboard
This jamboard activity is similar to my virtual paper dolls, but is focused on household furniture and prepositions of place. I use it as a review of prepositions of place and furniture vocabulary with my Spanish 3 students. I focused on the basic furniture from their vocabulary list and made all the furniture available on every frame. However, you could make separate jamboards just focusing on the bedroom, living room, kitchen, etc. Although I recommend you use .png images so the images don’t have a background. I wanted my students to choose from all the available vocabulary which is why I put it all together. There is also a…
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Virtual Paper Dolls
During hybrid instruction, when my clothing unit began I wanted my students to practice this vocabulary and colors, but wasn’t sure what the best option was since I couldn’t use my whiteboards. I thought of the idea for virtual paper dolls early on and eventually motivated myself to do it and the results are pretty cool! I used Jamboard because I wanted to see all the students’ progress in one place and only have one link to share. Jamboards only allow 20 frames though, so depending on class size you might need two. When creating the “doll” I quickly discovered that I couldn’t use the actual outline of a person…
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Beginning of Year Spanish Grammar Review
After the ups and downs of the last year and half, I wanted to provide my students with some resources they can use to review verb conjugations and tenses from last year. While we still introduced a lot of the normal course themes, they just didn’t get the same in class practice with the tenses so they need some additional support. The first site I’ve been recommending to them is conjuguemos. My department actually paid for the upgraded version of the site last year, so my students are familiar with the format and this year they have added even more games! There are grammar, vocabulary and listening activities all housed…
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Spanish Guess Who?
This year I finally completed a goal I’d had for many years: to make my own Guess Who? game using important or famous people from Spanish-speaking and Latinx communities. One of my units centers on physical descriptions and I had already purchased the game boards, so all that was left to do was create new cards, which is easier than it sounds! It was without a doubt the most time consuming task of my teaching career, but so worth it! In previous years I had purchased several copies of the original game Guess Who? and the knockoff version Who is it? . There is literally no difference between the game instructions,…
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Quizlet in the Classroom
It has only been in the last couple years I’ve really started using Quizlet both personally and with my students. If you aren’t familiar with the site, it is pretty simple: Quizlet is online flashcards. As a student, I loved flashcards and so as I’ve studied for various tests the last couple years, Quizlet was an irreplaceable tool. As I’ve shared in a previous post, Quizlet was the main way I prepared for the selected response portion of the National Boards Component 1 assessment . Once I’d really used Quizlet for myself, I started using it more for my students. I primarily use Quizlet as a vocabulary study tool for my…
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Telephone Pictionary
In college, my roommates loved to play a game called telephone pictionary. It was their favorite large group game and it was played at most gatherings we hosted. After playing telephone pictionary for years with my friends, I had a revelation a few years back: I could use this game as a classroom activity with my students! And I am happy to report that they love it! I teach Spanish 1, 2 and 5 and I use it in every level, with some modifications, which I will get into below. Here is how the game works: Pre-cut paper into squares. I cut a piece of paper into 16 pieces, like…