I don’t know about you, but I love the puzzle that is lesson planning for my elementary Spanish classes. I love looking at the big picture, a specific unit, and the nitty gritty of each daily lesson. I’d love to share with you how I plan lessons for my elementary Spanish classes.
I’m an over-planner and constantly worry about having extra time at the end of a lesson (seriously, that never happens when you have 30 minute lessons!). I often end up having an entire activity that we run out of time for and I have to push off until next time. All that to say, I love planning ahead and also am ever flexible when looking at lesson planning for my classes.
I tend to follow a similar structure for each of my lessons. I’m sure you’ll agree that elementary students benefit from familiar procedures and expectations. I find their self confidence in their new language grows when they know what they can expect from our Spanish lessons.
Lesson Plan Structure for Elementary Spanish Class
Introduction
-Song
-Welcome video
-Conversation question
-Go over the learning goal *every lesson!
I usually do a combination of these ideas. It’s nice to mix things up so there are a variety of attention grabbers throughout our lessons.
Part 1
-Whole group review of previous content followed by introduction of new content
-Whole group game or activity
Part 2
–Partner or solo practice activity
Conclusion
–Gather as a whole group again
–Review learning goals, shorter version of game or activity
–Goodbye song or chant
Let me share my lesson planning worksheet with you!
Click the image below to sign up to receive my lesson planning worksheet. You can edit the google slides if you’re a techy planner OR! make copies from a pdf if you’re a pen and paper planner like me.
How I plan lessons for Spanish class
Basic housekeeping–I number my lessons for each grade level. Starting with number 1 and continuing until the last lesson of the year. Depending on how the schedule works out and when we have days off, each classroom could be on different lessons as the year moves forward. However, I find it helps me keep track of which group needs which lesson to keep them numbered.
I add in extra lessons for holidays or other cultural topics not included in our curriculum as we have time. Some years we might be finishing up a project and not have extra time to do a lesson for el Día de San Valentín in a particular grade. If we have time, however, it’s fun to expand on these exciting or special days in class.
One last thing to keep in mind when planning lessons for elementary Spanish class…kids need to move. Movement breaks are so important! These can be planned right into the lesson or done as a spur of the moment activity as needed. I intentionally think about at which points in my lessons students will be able to move. I find this helps me keep it more balanced and students are sitting for extended periods of time less often. Even moving into partner groups is a chance to get up and stretch / move / get the wiggles out!
A gentle reminder–while it’s wonderful to research and collaborate with others, ultimately, I’ve found it so important to plan for lessons that make the most sense to the individual teacher. We’re most successful when we work to our own strengths and plan lessons we know will work best for our students each year.
Happy planning!
As a Spanish teacher always on the lookout for new ways to engage my students (especially this year), I was pumped when a colleague told me about the online game Baamboozle. (Thanks, Jamie!)
I love this game for many reasons but the best reason is how versatile it is! You can use it with any content and grade level. I like to switch up how we do teams so it feels different each time. Plus, it’s a nice alternative to the individual player online games like Kahoot and Blooket.
How to get set up
Baamboozle is played with just one device. The teacher brings it up on their computer, projects it on the screen or board, and you’re ready to play.
Creating the games is not super time consuming. Add a title, description, and an image to help you keep track of your different games and you’re ready to create questions!
The questions are really simple to create. Type in the question & answer, add an image or gif if you’d like and repeat. If my question asks for students to do a movement, I usually put the answer as “student answered correctly.”
Playing Baamboozle
The free version allows for up to 4 teams. I usually make around 12 questions so I choose the 16 question option. I like to make sure there is room for some of the fun power-ups.
There are a few different options for how to play the game.
The quiz option on the left will just be question / answer.
Classic Jr. on the right has the questions worth fewer points. Plus, it only does the simple power-ups; not the mean (steal from the other team) ones. This version is great for classes that struggle with wining/losing.
I usually play the Classic version. This has positive and negative power-ups.
To keep things simple for teams, I usually divide the class in half down the middle.
I call on the first student to pick which question they’d like, using the Spanish number. If they answer in English, we all count up together in Spanish. The student who picked the question has to tell me the answer but they can check in with their team mates as needed.
If you’re short on time or have a little extra, you can play a lightning round. In that case, I just start with question 1 and make my way through the questions numerically.
Now that we’ve looked at set up and how to play, let me share with you…
Reasons Why I Love Baamboozle
It’s easy to create games
Maybe it’s just me but creating games on Baamboozle takes me way less time than other game sites. I love that they have images and gifs included; and that you can also upload your own images.
You can use different types of questions
It’s so nice to be able to have different tasks other than the typical multiple choice question. This is an easy way to incorporate conversation type content. I also love that students don’t have to be able to read the questions & answer options–the teacher can do that during the game. Students can respond with a word, phrase, sentence, movement, you name it!
Incorporate movement
Honestly, this is my top reason why I love this game. Especially this year, I’m sure we’re all looking for ways to enable our students to move (in a positive way, not like hanging upside down from their chair or draped over their desk…). Baamboozle lets us do that! They can do an action for a certain vocabulary term or repeat an action a certain number of times. Learning numbers? Have them count to a certain number while marching or jumping! Working with more advanced students? Have them act out a sentence.
It’s fun to play with bigger teams
I often play “Clase vs. Señora” during games like tic tac toe or board games as a whole group. However, it’s fun to switch it up and play Baamboozle with two larger teams. Although keep in mind, you are able to have as many as 4 groups with the free version. I typically have the student who picks the question give me the answer but I allow them to check in with their team if they want to.
It works great with all grade levels
This is one of the few online games I will use with any grade level. It’s nice that there is no logging in and the only set up is clicking the link and deciding teams. No running around helping 20 kindergarten friends figure out how to login! 🤣
Some degree of luck
Each class has those one or two students whose brains work really fast and tend to win more often than not. I like that this game throws cards in that help or hurt the team. That degree of luck allows for some epic comebacks and increased engagement from all students.
It allows for teacher scaffolding / support and discretion on answers allowed
Since the teacher is the one deciding if the answer is correct or incorrect, this allows for a little wiggle room. I love being able to provide support for those students who need it and then being able to still award points when they come up with the answer.
Give it a try!
Maybe these games I already made will be helpful to you. Check them out! I’d love to hear what you think once you’ve tried it–leave a comment below.
As busy Spanish teachers, you know we love activities that are easy to prep for and super versatile. I love using the same game multiple different ways; think of all the time saved because students already know the process / procedures for play!
Enter…tic tac toe.
When I think back to my first experiences with the tic tac toe game as an educator, I see my high schoolers working in pairs, conjugating verbs to capture their space on the board. It’s a decent way to practice the conjugation skills in isolation, I suppose. But, I’ve come to learn that tic tac toe can be so much more than that!
Depending on when I’m using the game within a unit, I’ll use it for different purposes. We can start super simple with actions or single word recall and move all the way to practicing the question/answer process or sentence creation!
Playing this game with my elementary Spanish classes
Whole group & With Partners
In addition to the variety of ways we use content with this game, I also like to switch up the format of the game. I usually start out with a whole group game–clase vs. Sra. This can be a quick game at the start of a lesson or to wrap up a lesson (anyone else always overplan just in case?). OR, it can be one of the main activities of the lesson. If that’s the case, I often model the game by playing with the whole group first and then I send them to work in pairs.
In a normal year, I give a pair of students a sheet of paper with 4 tic tac toe boards on it for partner play. They can mark off x’s and o’s with different colored markers as they play. This year, I’ve modified for “socially distanced” play. Students sit at distance and mark both the x’s and o’s on their own paper. In theory, it helps us stay a bit safer.
Okay, how do I switch up the content with this game?
At the very start of the unit, I encourage you to only play as a whole group. This allows the teacher to model and provide all kinds of input. I put up a board with just images relating to our new unit of study. Students can choose their spot on the board by doing the action for it (if there is one), saying the Spanish word, or coming to the board to point at the spot they would like. If they didn’t produce the word, I model it and encourage them to repeat if they are comfortable. I never force students to repeat words in Spanish.
Later on in a unit, I love to pair this game with a grammar structure. Sometimes I include an image along with a sentence in each space. In that case students simply read the sentence for the spot they want. Other times I continue to use a board with just images but encourage students to produce a sentence.
For example, my first graders recently learned to describe rainforest animals. We used the same tic tac toe boards from earlier in the unit (just images) but now they were able to describe the color or size of the animal instead of just saying the animal name.
Later in the same unit we snuck in talking about our opinions of the animals and used “me gusta” or “no me gusta” during the game.
Lastly, depending on the level of my students, I like to add in the question / answer process during tic tac toe. For example, my third graders are learning about different foods in the 5 food groups. We played tic tac toe with the question, “¿Cuál fruta es?” and answer, “Es una manzana.” This simply encourages them and gives them practice speaking in sentences.
It might sound like we play tic tac toe all day / every day in my class. BUT! it’s just one of many different strategies to keep my students engaged and using Spanish. I love to switch things up on them. They’re always excited to see which way we’ll practice Spanish when I roll my cart into their room each lesson.
Which version of tic tac toe do you want to add into your lesson sometime soon?
