Spanish Scavenger Hunt

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I am currently setting up for my summer camps and was looking for some extra activities to do with my more advanced students that are reading. I found this set and decided to turn it into a scavenger hunt. It is used to teach young ones the alphabet, but I found that it was perfect to hide items (included in the set) for my students to find. 

In the set, there are 26 acorns (bellotas) and 26 little plastic items that can fit in the acorns. I set up the hunt to have the possibility of five teams (great for about 10-15 kids). If you have less than five teams that's ok. You can still set the game up and put all the acorns out even if they aren't going to all be picked up. It will add to the challenge. If you have around 20 kids then you will need two sets.

I have created a file with the scavenger hunt lists already set up. You can find them here. (Scavenger hunt document) You will see two versions of the scavenger hunt with five groups each. The first number refers to which version. The second number refers to the group. At the end of the file, there is the word, "Socorro" printed several times. I will hand out one of these to each team in case they need help with a word. They can hand the SOCORRO paper to me at any time during the hunt to get a definition.

Set up the acorns with the correct items according to the document. Hide them outdoors (or you could do this in a classroom if it's big enough). Give each team (groups of two or three students) one list of what they need to find and a SOCORRO paper. Tell them GO and see which team can find all their items first. 

Please note that there will be one extra acorn and item that won't be used. You can leave them out or you can tell your students that once they have collected their five items and have had them checked by the teacher that they then need to go find the last acorn (which I am going to leave empty-la bellota vacía).

Also, instruct students that if they open an acorn and it's not the one they need then they will need to make sure they put the item back in the acorn and close it tightly before putting it back in its hiding space.  Otherwise, it will be mayhem!😱

Here's the set you need: Acorn Scavenger Hunt Set

And here's the file to set it up and play: Two Versions of the Hunt

Have fun!

Easter Island {Cultural Craft for Spanish Students}

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I am gearing up for another summer of Spanish camps and so looking forward to it. My camps are composed of language practice, cultural crafts, games, geography, and stories. It is a great introduction for kids in the language. You can find all my posts about summer camp if you click here.

Last year we made personal piñatas, molas, Chilean rainsticks, and a few other cultural crafts. For the kids that will be returning this year, I needed to have some new material to teach them and some new crafts. One of the days we will focus on body parts and the country of Chile so I thought it would be a great opportunity to make Moai, the famous Easter Island statues. 

I wanted an easy, quick way for students to make the statues without us taking too much time. I happened to find this ice cube mold and thought it would be perfect! (You can find it here.) Next I wanted a no-mess, easy clean-up clay that would air dry. This air dry clay is perfect, and I bought several packages in gray to make the heads with. To add to the educational value of the craft we are going to model the actual island (which is triangular) and  add a little bit of the ocean around it. I am thinking that I will make the clay for the island and the water to save on money. You can find a recipe here.

Along with making the islands, we will be spending sometime learning/reviewing body parts. I have made some extra statues in order to play a game that I saw online a few months back. Here's how it is done: You create two lines of students and have them face each other so that each kid has a partner. They need to be seated on the floor/ground. Place between each set of kids a Moai statue. Then begin to call out body parts in Spanish. Whatever body part is called the students have to place their hands on that part of themselves. So for example, if I say "cabeza" they will put their hands on their head. Call out several body parts. Then at some point say "Vayan" (or even "estatua") which means the pairs have to grab the little statue that is between them. Whoever grabs it first between the two kids wins and gets to stay in the game. Have the remaining that are still playing pair up with a new partner and do another round. Continue until you have only one student remaining. You can modify this game to make it a little less competitive for younger kids who sometimes struggle with winning and losing. Don't have anyone exit the game. Let everyone continue playing no matter who got the statue first.

I am also planning on doing a scavenger hunt with the statues by hiding them in an outdoor area and having the students search for them. I will probably do directions in the target language for older kids.

Here are some other resources to use in conjunction with this craft...

For my summer camps I limit the number of students so that kids get to practice in the language. So I will probably be buying several sets of these excavation kits for kids to work on in pairs. They get to dig up some Moai! (You can find them here.)

Also, have you been to Mundo de Pepita? It is an awesome blog with tons of resources and ideas for teaching Spanish to children. She also has a Teachers pay Teachers store which you can find HERE. She recently came out with a bulletin board set for the country of Chile! I will be using it during my camps as I like to have visual representations of the different countries we study. The set includes Moai, guanacos, the Chilean flag, some of the flora of the country, and a few other items.

Finally, here is a game to use, especially if you are breaking your students into groups to do center work. They can call out the numbers in Spanish as they play. The game is called Sneaky Statues and can be ordered HERE.

If you have any other ideas to go along with the Moai I would love to hear them!!

Online Listening Activities {Free Printable}

There are so many more opportunities for students these days to listen to Spanish as the internet and podcasts have opened up a whole new world. When I was learning Spanish (oh, so long ago!), your options were to go to a language lab or use tapes! So I would like to share with you two options (among the many) that I use with my students and a free printable to use with them.

Veinte Mundos is an online magazine for language learners. There are a plethora of articles (close to 200) categorized for students by intermediate and advanced levels. These articles include audio, the transcript of what was being said, comprehension questions, defined words, and other videos related to the article. I love that culture is taught through the articles. Students can learn about dulce de leche, biblioburro, tapas, and so much more!

Duolingo has just introduced a new podcast! These stories are for intermediate students and are bilingual. My understanding is that they are real life stories. The Spanish is a bit slower and English is injected throughout the story. These podcasts are definitely for high schoolers and up who are still struggling in their listening skills. My favorite podcast so far has been Memorias y Milanesas which touches on a compelling story of the Falklands War in 1982.

If you would like a follow-up activity, see the printable below. It can be used with the podcasts from Duolingo or with the Veinte Mundos articles. Students need to identify the places that are mentioned on the world map, make a list of vocabulary they don't know, and write a summary of what they listened to in Spanish.

You can download the free printable HERE.

Dice Sentences {Free Printables}

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Want a quick and easy way to do some review in groups with verbs and the formation of sentences? All you need are these printables {see below} and some colored dice {These work well.}. Basically, students roll four dice at a time (red, green, blue, and orange) and depending on what numbers they get on each colored die they create sentences.  Here's an example:

Let's pretend that a student rolls the following: red 2, green 3, blue 4, and orange 6. The sentence he or she creates would be "Tú estudias español todos los días en la biblioteca." These sentences can be done in groups out loud as a class starter. They can also be written by students. Small groups of students (3 to 5) tend to work well for this activity. 

I have created four printables: 

Basic verbs (present tense)

Shoe verbs (present tense)

Verbs with "GO" in the Yo form (present tense)

Irregular Preterite verbs

You will notice with some of the charts the students create a sentence that conveys four pieces of information: who, what happens, when, where. Other charts have three pieces of information and then the type of sentence they are to create (affirmative, negative, interrogative). This adds another level to just straight sentences and makes them think about how to form different types of sentences.

So pull out some colored dice and get your students forming sentences!

Hide-N-Seek Vocabulary Game (for Second Language Learning)

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I struggle sometimes on how to get my youngest students to use the language especially when they are in the first few months of exposure to Spanish. The first problem is that with lower elementary-age students their attention span is very short, and when you add the fact that they have limited vocabulary at the beginning it can be challenging to find activities to get them talking in the target language. This week though I came across an activity that really worked! Not only does this activity require that they speak in Spanish, but it incorporates repetition of the vocabulary in a way that keeps them motivated. Here's how it works...

I create picture cards with the vocabulary on them we are working on. The ones you see here are for the weather, but the cards could be any group of vocabulary as long as you can use pictures: clothing, rooms in a house, places in a city, foods, etc. I laminate the cards (VERY IMPORTANT) so that I can use the dot stickers on the back of them. If the cards aren't laminated then you won't be able to get the sticker off as easily.  I lay out the cards face up on the table. If you have a large group of students you can make bigger cards and hang them up. Then I ask my students in the target language to turn around (away from the cards) and close their eyes (young ones are expert "peekers" so I have them do both actions). I then take a colored dot (See these here as they are easy to remove.) and stick it to the back of one of the cards. Then all my students can turn around and open their eyes. They take turns asking in the target language about a card to see if the dot is behind it.

So for example, if we are working on weather words they would ask, "¿Está nublado?" or "¿Hace viento?". I then reveal the underneath of the card to show them whether the dot is there or not. After I have hidden the dot a few times, I let some of my students do the hiding. If you have a large group, you may not be able to let everyone hide each time you play the game. So you may want to keep track of who has hidden the dot so that next time other students can do it. My students absolutely LOVE hiding the sticker and being in charge of answering the questions and revealing the backside of the cards. Another variation I do (normally at the end of the activity) is for me to "hide" the dot one more time. However, this last time around, I don't actually hide the dot on one of the cards. I put it some place else out of sight. This forces the students to ask about ALL the cards and review all the vocabulary. When the last card is revealed there may be some surprised looks! 😊

While I have used this with great success with elementary-age kids, it can be used as a quick review for older students (like in high school). I love how it requires students to use the language and how they get to hear the words/phrases over and over again. The other added benefit? If a child has the task of hiding the dot, he or she then also has to practice finding which card the other student is asking about. There's plenty of repetition and review without it being boring!

Clothespin Monsters and Language Learning

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I am always looking for new ways to teach Spanish vocabulary I have taught for years. It adds spice to my lessons and also keeps the teacher (me) engaged. Last week I came across this post on making little monsters and decided to make them in all the colors that I have taught my students. I also laminated them and used this glue (click here) which is incredibly durable. In the post, she suggests playing games with pom poms (find them here) with the monsters. I am using the monsters and the pom poms to review colors. Here's how I do it:

I lay out all the monsters on the table and then give instructions in Spanish like "El monstruo rojo come azul." One of my students then needs to find the red monster and use him to pick up a blue pom pom to deposit in a nearby cup. Once I have done this enough with students, I then ask them to "be the teacher" and give instructions to fellow classmates. 

Another activity is to have small disposable bathroom cups for each child. Lay out all your pom poms on a table. Each child gets a clothespin monster to use. Time them for thirty seconds or one minute and have them fill their small cups with as many pom poms as possible using only the monster to get them in the cup. When time is up, have them count the pom poms in their cups in the target language and tell you how many they got.

I also have doll clothes that I use for teaching which can also be used with these monsters. Give students instructions on which colored monster is going to eat which article of clothing. Have them deposit the clothes in another container that serves as the "stomach" for the monsters. Actually, these monsters can be used for all kinds of vocabulary in this same manner as long as you have something for the students to pick up with them. 

If you have any more ideas on how to use these monsters in a language classroom I would love to hear them! 

Word Pictures for Vocabulary Review

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Want a simple activity that incorporates creativity with vocabulary learning? How about trying word pictures with your students? Pictures are drawn entirely with words. For each part of the picture, students write the word for that part over and over again to form the shape of the item. For example, if you are drawing a dress then you would write the word "dress" to create the shape of the dress.

The best way to start these pictures is with a pencil. Have your students lightly outline their drawing. Then using fine tip pens (I used these.), have your students write the word over the pencil lines. They should pick words that correspond to each part of the picture. There is a little bit of poetic license, for the face in the picture I could use cara (face), cabeza (head), or chica (girl). When they are done they can erase the pencil lines. Let your students be creative!

They will also need to decide how much they will break down the picture with vocabulary words. I had the option on the picture below to write the words "trunk" and "leaves" for the tree, but just opted to write "tree" in Spanish instead.

This simple activity is a great way to reinforce the vocabulary your students are learning. You can do pictures for all different kinds of sets of words: weather, body parts, clothing, parts of a house, furniture, cities, foods, etc. Have fun being creative!!

Spanish Camp for Kids {Day 5}

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The final day of camp! Time for review and fun and games! We will review all previous vocabulary through different activities. We may even go back to some of the earlier activities in the week. {To see all the posts for my Spanish camps, click here.} We will finish off the week with making personal piñatas. You can find the instructions here.

We will also play some extra games today...

Minute-To-Win-It games- We will do several of these games...especially the ones with pompoms.

Mano Nerviosa- A simple game that uses regular decks of cards to review numbers. My students LOVE this game!

Cerdos- We will have played this earlier in the week, but for today I have set up this game to review more of the vocabulary we have learned.



To finish off, I will read La Piñata Vacía to my students and hand out these little packages of bilingual cookies to them as they go! They are available here.

To see all the ideas for each day of my Spanish camps, click HERE! And I would love to hear from you! If you have done Spanish camps before, what activities have you done? What has worked well?

Spanish Camp for Kids {Day 4}

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I had the privilege of living in Buenos Aires, Argentina for awhile to improve my Spanish. One of the interesting places I visited was the neighborhood of La Boca with its brightly painted houses. So for the fourth day of my Spanish camp we are going to focus on houses and the vocabulary surrounding them (door, window, up, down, outside, inside) and then recreate some of the typical houses in La Boca.

Today I have decided to rely heavily on die cuts. I made six houses each in a different color. I also made die cuts of different weather symbols. So to review weather, house, and color vocabulary I will give students instructions in Spanish and see if they can create the scene I describe. For example...

Llueve sobre la casa roja.

Nieva sobre la casa verde.

I am also going to take this opportunity to review animals with the die cut houses. I found some animals that were smaller than the houses. I will lay out all the different colored houses and then hide one of the animals underneath one of the houses. Students will need to ask me in the target language if the animal is behind the blue house or the yellow house, etc. 

Another activity we will do is to draw in the details of houses following my instructions in Spanish. See this post for more information. And this post for the printable of houses you can use.

One of our active games today will be using the colored cups I bought for the week. With them we will play "Arriba/Abajo". Take several cups (maybe twice as many cups as you have students) and place half of them right side up (arriba) and half of them upside down (abajo) on the lawn or large play area. Divide your group into two teams one that is "arriba" and one that is "abajo". Tell them to start...the object of the game is to change the cups to fit what team you are on. If you are on the "arriba" team then you need to run around putting all the cups right side up. If you are on the "abajo" team then you want them all upside down. Give them one minute to play. The team with the most cups in their position wins.

Our craft will be to re-create the houses of La Boca, Argentina. Here are the instructions for the project with a little background information on La Boca. 

You will need a paper crimper for this project to give the right look to the sides of the buildings. Here is a link to get an idea of what to look for...

Paper Crimper

For our reading today we will dive into the following books:

Harold y el Lapiz Color Morado
Ruidos en la Casa- Cute book of a puppy who is scared being home alone
La Casa Adormecida
El Pastel Esta Tan Arriba
Oso en Casa

To see the rest of my plans for the other days of camp, click HERE!!

Spanish Camp for Kids {Day 3}

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If you have been following along, you know that I am hosting Spanish camps this summer. You can read about the other days by clicking this link. For day three, we will be focusing on animals. Here's a look at our activities...

I selected a list of about ten animals to focus on for the day and made flashcards in order to teach the vocabulary. You can find some great animal flashcards in Spanish HERE.

We will do several games today like Color, Colorcito. Here are the instructions.

We will do an animal hunt game. I have several die cuts of animals that I have laminated that I can hide in the lawn. I will call out an animal and the students will race to find it. Whoever does can then call out an animal. Just a simple way to review the vocabulary.

I made an Animal Tally Game by taking scrapbook paper of animal skins or pictures (see below) and punching out squares. Each student will receive a page (I made about five different pages so that not every single one is the same combinations of animals, but it is still the same number of animals to find.) Then I have a set of cards with the same scrapbook paper punched out, backed with cardstock and laminated. These will be laid face down. Students take turns picking up a card and telling us in the target language the name of the animal represented. If they need that animal they place it over the square on their sheet. If not, they return it to the pile. The first student to get all the cards on his or her sheet wins.

For our craft for the day, we will be making paper molas (See the top photo in the post). Molas come from the Kuna tribe in Panama. They are normally made out of cloth and worn by the women.  Here are some examples. And here are the instructions for making paper molas.

And finally, here are the books I will be sharing with the students:




Yo Tenia un Hipopotamo
De La Cabeza a Los Pies
Sali de Paseo- A good way to review colors also.

Spanish Camp for Kids {Day 2}

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This summer I am hosting some summer mini-camps to teach kids Spanish. Today we will take a look at what I plan to do for day two. {Here is day one if you missed it.} For the second day of camp, we will focus on teaching numbers (1-10) and weather vocabulary. Here's a look at our activities:

We will start out by me teaching the vocabulary. Normally, I find that many young kids already know the numbers 1-10 so I always modify my lesson to fit the ability levels in the group. After we work with the vocabulary we will do a round of "Zapatito Blanco, Zapatito Azul". {Here's a video on how it works.} In the past, I have used just the first two lines of the rhyme and had the students call out their actual age, or you can use the whole rhyme as is.

Zapatito blanco, zapatito azul. 
Dime, ¿cuántos años tienes tú? 
¡Cinco! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5*
Y sales tú con la letra doble-u.


On to a more active game...I have filled several little baggies with random items. Some bags have two items, some five, some ten. You get the idea. The baggies will be placed around the lawn. I will call out a number in Spanish, and my students will run to find a baggie with that number of items in it. It's helpful to have a few bags that have the same number of items. If you do that, then a few students will get a bag for each number. Students aren't allowed to open the bags...they simply need to count the items to see if the bag is what they want. The student with the most bags at the end wins.

We will play "Cerdos" with the numbers and colors today. You can read all about this game HERE.

Our craft for the day will be rainsticks since we focused on weather earlier. Here are the complete instructions on how to make them. Before we dive in, I will show them where Chile is and talk about the desert there.

We will also do Weather Bingo and play this number and color game, if time allows.

And finally, here is a list of books we will be reading...




Un Dia de Lluvia
Los Animales No Se Visten- This book is incredibly funny!
Oso Bajo el Sol
Un Alce, Veinte Ratones- This will be a great review of numbers and will extend our counting a bit. There are also tons of animals in the book which will lead into tomorrow's theme!

To see all the posts on my Spanish Camp plans, click here, to read them as they become available. There will be five days total.

Spanish Camp Ideas

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This summer I am branching out and doing mini-camps to teach kids Spanish. The camps will be for elementary-age kids relatively new to the language and last one week. Mine will be two hours a day (although my ideas could totally be stretched to three hours a day).  Over the next week or so I will share with you my ideas...what I will teach each day, the games we will play, and the cultural crafts we will do. I have to admit that I have relied heavily on Pinterest for great ideas for games and crafts. The bulk of the work has been setting up the structure of what I am going to teach. So join me over the next week or so as I give you details of what you can do if you decide to teach a Spanish camp yourself. We'll talk supplies, activities, games, culture, and crafts. {Like these great bilingual cookies to hand out during the week.}

So join me! And I would love to hear your ideas, too! You can eventually find all the posts HERE.

Fun Treat for Spanish Students

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This summer I will be doing a few mini-camps filled with opportunities to be exposed to the Spanish language through games, stories, and arts and crafts. (Stay tuned for more information on what to do in a Spanish camp.) So imagine my surprise when I came across these super cute bilingual cookies?! I thought they would be a wonderful treat for my students during the week! 

The cookies can come in individual bags (See here) and in boxes (See here). They are nut-free and there is a mixture of vocabulary words (50 different words and the numbers 1-10). They are not overly sweet and similar to a shortbread cookie.

I have bought a case for my students this summer! If you are looking for a special treat IN SPANISH for your students this fits the bill!

Instant Lesson Plans for Your Language Classroom

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Let's face it. While teaching can be incredibly rewarding, it is also draining emotionally and physically (especially when you are sick). There are times when I really struggle to get through a teaching day. While I don't teach in a regular classroom (I give private and small group lessons), I still struggle from time to time to get through a lesson. Recently, I decided that I needed a master list of easy activities I could do with students when...

• I'm not feeling well.
• They have a make-up lesson.
• We have a game day at the end of the semester.

I prefer not to waste precious time with my students with activities that don't further their language learning, and yet there are days when we need to step back and do something different. I was also realizing that coming up with ideas when I'm pressed for time or feeling ill wasn't working for me. I needed a ready-to-go list I could just pull out. So on a quiet afternoon, I did some brainstorming of all the activities my students have been exposed to that we could do on a game day or a day when I'm sick. (Or if you are teaching in a regular school...a day when you need a sub). I created a file and then printed out several copies to have on hand. I teach a big age range (age five through high school) and a myriad of ability levels. So it is easier for me to have a master list and circle the activities we are going to do based on the ages of the students and their abilities. It becomes my instant lesson plan.

If you are teaching larger groups, you may need to break students into groups and have "stations" where they move from activity to activity during the class. That way no one gets bored and all the teacher has to do is monitor the groups.

Here's some of what is on my list with links to see how it's all done. However, since every teacher is different it would be ideal for you to come up with your own list of activities that work in your classroom.

• KLOO- I love this game (and my students do as well) because it really gets them creating the language. You can buy the board game version or just the deck of cards (There are four different decks in the Spanish version). This game come in Spanish, French, Italian, and even English for ESL learners.
• Guess Where House Game- A guessing game that uses family members and house vocabulary.
• Spot the Difference Cards- Can students talk about the differences in these cards in the target language?
• Spot It!- Fast-moving card game that can be done in any target language.
• Caramba- This is currently the top post on my blog. My students LOVE this vocabulary review game! It's easy to make it yourself and have on hand.
• Fast Flip Games-You can read about this game halfway down this post. A fast-paced game for reviewing foods. There's the fruit version and a pizza version. Yum!
• Mano Nerviosa-I started using this game this past school year and my students beg for it. Done in the target language with two decks of regular cards. Here's how to play.
• Secret Square- A simple game that uses any picture cards with vocabulary your students have worked with.
• Bananagrams-See this post for ideas on how to use Bananagrams with your students. You will need to get the right version of this game for the language you teach. Here's the Spanish version. And the French one.
• Card Talkers is a simple activity using a Spanish deck of cards and questions. I have four printables on my blog to use with the cards. You can find the links to all of them in this post. NOTE: This activity is better suited to older kids and high schoolers.
• Drawing Activities (this is for the whole group to do together.)- A plethora of drawing activites along with the printables to do them. These are definitely listening exercises for your students. You can find them here.
• Memory and Go Fish- If you have pictures cards (two of the same picture on two different cards) you can play a whole bunch of different games with them. Take a look at this post.

So pull out a piece of paper or open up a file and start brainstorming ideas for the days when teaching is tough!! I welcome any other ideas in the comments!!