Activities for Teaching Spanish in Elementary School

Learning Spanish isn't just about reading a textbook.

Interactive Spanish games help children learn to comprehend foreign vocabulary, and make learning fun. Children engage in the learning process by using the words in fun and exciting ways through relay races, Internet reading, music and practice.

Review Colors, Shapes and Letters

You can do this in the classroom, or outside if the weather is suitable. Prepare by writing down one word, phrase or sentence for each team, in Spanish. Then write the letters onto construction paper of different colors. Cut out each individual letter into a different common shape such as a circle, square, rectangle, star or diamond. Keep the letters of each sentence together. Place the letters into a bucket or bowl, one per team. Add a few extra miscellaneous colored letters to mix it up. Then write lists on pieces of paper of the colored shapes that the students are required to retrieve using the Spanish words. The students will stand in lines, and will race the other teams by running one at a time in a relay format to retrieve each colored shape on their list. Once they have retrieved all their shapes, they should piece them together into the correct sentence.

Songs

Practice comprehension with songs. Beforehand, write a few key words from the song and discuss what the song is about so the children have an idea. Discuss pronunciation, vocabulary and idioms, and grammar and syntax. Write down the words in English and have the children listen for the Spanish equivalents. Then, play the song a couple of times and ask the children what they heard, what kind of song they think it is, and how it made them feel. Listen to the song another time and use worksheets to have the children fill in missing words, ideally the same vocabulary words from earlier. If there is time, have them write their own words to the song, make a skit based on the song, or draw pictures about it.

Fishing for Words

Cut out magazine pictures or have the children draw pictures of the Spanish vocabulary words for the week. Make duplicates so there can be several groups. Laminate the pictures, if you wish, and affix magnets to the back of them. Also write the Spanish and English translations of the words on the back. Then make little fishing poles with pencils, string and magnets. Place the pictures into several buckets and split the children up into groups at "stations" around the room. Allow the children to "fish" for vocabulary words, in turns, within their groups. If the child pulls out a picture and knows the Spanish equivalent, he can keep the picture in his pile. At the end, the child with the most pictures is the winner within each group.

Guess Who?

Split the class either into teams of two each, or into two halves. Each team should decide on one person to be the "it" person. Everyone starts by standing. The teams must take turns asking questions about the identity of the "it" person on the opposing team, in Spanish. Is it a boy or girl? Does she have brown hair? Does she have blue eyes? "Does she have short hair?" Continue until the identity is discovered.

References

• SpanishTeaching: Teacher's Guide to Using Songs in the Classroom
• Bilingual Fun: Games to Teach Spanish