Teaching Spanish 1 is one of the most exciting opportunities in world language education. It’s the moment when learners build the foundation that will shape their entire language journey — confidence, comprehension, communication, and cultural awareness. This page brings together Spanish 1 unit plans, lessons, activities, CI resources, assessments, vocabulary supports, grammar tools, and classroom printables in one organized hub, making it easy for teachers to find exactly what they need.
Whether you’re building a full-year curriculum, refreshing your daily routines, or adding high-quality activities to your existing program, this guide offers resources rooted in Comprehensible Input (CI), ACTFL proficiency targets, and real-world communication.
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5 Weeks of No and Low Prep Fun
Need quick, engaging activities for your class? This free guide includes 25 no-prep and low-prep ideas to save time while keeping students excited about learning.
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Spanish Colors Coloring Activity
Need a quick activity to practice colors in Spanish? Check out a quick one below. Instrucciones: Colorea los colores según el nombre del color en español. Luego, combina colores y escribe el resultado en español. Parte 1: Colorea los colores Rojo Azul Amarillo Verde Anaranjado Morado Rosado Negro Blanco Gris Parte 2: Mezclas de colores…
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Spanish Course Syllabus Template
Spanish Course Syllabus Template Creating a clear and student-friendly syllabus is one of the best ways to set the tone for a successful school year. Below is a ready-to-use Spanish Course Syllabus Template that you can copy, customize, and share with students and families. It includes essential course information, expectations, materials, grading, and a warm…
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Spanish Lessons: Teaching the Present Progressive
Teaching the present progressive is one of my favorite topics for Spanish lessons. The context allows for a lot of fun activities and engagement. Below are some ideas for teaching the present progressive in Spanish in your class: Start with the PowerPoint presentation. After you’ve introduced the PowerPoint presentation, do your first set of Immersive…
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Using the Calendar to Teach Spanish
During my years of teaching language immersion, kindergarten and Spanish in elementary, middle and high school, I have come to regard the calendar as an indispensable teaching tool. Math, weather, numbers, counting, seasons, days and months can all be taught via some time spent daily with the calendar. Using the calendar daily in your secondary…
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Teaching the Preterite in Spanish: Favorite Activities
Preterite Lessons: Teaching Plan Teaching students the preterite so they can talk about the past is essential. The activities below are designed to supplement your lessons on the Spanish preterite tense. Mastering verbs, especially in the preterite, can be challenging, but this plan provides engaging activities and structured practice to make it easier. 1. Introduction…
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Spanish Class: Learn to talk about School
A theme explored in any beginning Spanish class is talking about school. I have created a bundle of resources and lesson plans, and wanted to share those ideas. You can get the bundle or pick and choose to add to your repertoire. Objectives. In this unit, students will learn how to talk about basic nouns…
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Teaching Spanish: Descriptions
Here are some of my favorite activities for teaching students to understand and talk about descriptions in Spanish. Day one. Start with the presentation.Spanish Descriptions Pear Deck Activity It teaches appearance in context. Next, do a set of immersive quizzes. You’ll see the directions, as well as the visuals, to print out. Each day during…
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Using Bingo to Teach Foreign Languages: Why It Works
Teaching foreign languages can be challenging for both students and teachers. Bingo offers a fun and effective way to introduce and reinforce vocabulary, grammar, and difficult concepts, especially at the novice level. Here are six reasons to incorporate Bingo into your beginning-level foreign language classes: 1. Instant Total Physical Response (TPR) Total Physical Response (TPR)…
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Spanish Lessons: Teaching Clothing Vocabulary
Teaching clothing vocabulary in Spanish is one of my favorite themes. These lessons are fun, interactive, and full of opportunities for immersive comprehensible input and communicative activities. The following plan outlines activities based on a lesson bundle (or curated visuals from stock image sites). Day One: Introduction to Clothing Vocabulary Day Two: Interactive Practice and…
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Teaching World Languages: Comprehensible Input Vocabulary Quizzes
Comprehensible Input Vocab Quizzes Comprehensible Input vocab assessments are the perfect way to begin teaching a language to novice students. They learn how to listen, speak, read, and then finally write-the skill we master last. Select six to eight words from the group of words you’d like to teach. Get the visuals for each. Start…
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Hispanic Heritage Month: My Favorite Activities
Hispanic Heritage Month is a time of year to celebrate the rich and diverse cultures of the Spanish-speaking world. This special month provides an excellent opportunity to honor the independence days of various Spanish-speaking countries and explore their fascinating traditions, histories, and contributions. Here are some engaging activities to help you celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month…
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Two Weeks of Beginning Spanish Lessons
Kick off your Beginning Spanish Lessons with an immersive approach that introduces students to greetings, calendar routines, classroom commands, emotions, and cultural elements through interactive activities, visuals, and real-world practice. Lesson 1 Objectives: Students will work in the interpretive mode. They will learn to understand basic greetings, the calendar, the Pledge of Allegiance, emotions, meeting…
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Imperfect Tense in Spanish: My Favorite Activities
Are you looking for a ready-made pack of activities to teach the imperfect tense in Spanish? These activities are designed to help students master the imperfect tense in less than a week! Overview of Activities These activities typically take two block periods to complete. However, if you choose to integrate them with additional text-based activities,…
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Spanish Class Activity: Composite Person
Here’s a fun Spanish class activity to review body parts and descriptions. Student Instructions (Spanish & English) Instrucciones:Crea una persona compuesta usando partes del cuerpo. Dibuja una persona usando partes de diferentes personas, animales o personajes. Etiqueta al menos 10 partes del cuerpo en español. Escribe tres oraciones que describan a tu persona compuesta. Instructions:Create…
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Guess Who? Family Edition (Spanish)
¡Hola! Here’s a fun activity to learn to talk about family and make questions in Spanish. Objective Students practice family vocabulary and closed questions (yes/no questions) by guessing which family member their partner has chosen. 1. Materials A printable family tree with portraits or icons for each family member. A character card list (one per…
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Spanish Lessons: Talk about the Future
Future Tense Spanish Lessons To (Hopefully) Spark Joy Of all the verb tenses we teach in Spanish class, the future tense is many a teacher’s absolute favorite—and it tends to be a fan favorite for students, too. By the time they reach this point, they’ve usually survived the roller coaster of present, preterite, imperfect, and…
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Spanish Class Activity: Health Chat Mats
Spanish Chat Mats: Talk about Health Looking for a way to facilitate talking about health for learners of Spanish? Check out these chat mats. Use these to make dialogues and skits. Culminate with the writing activity at the end. 5 Weeks of No and Low Prep Fun Need quick, engaging activities for your class? This…
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Spanish Chat Mat: Talk about School Supplies
Spanish Chat Mat: Talk about School Supplies Here’s a fun comprehensible input tool to get absolute beginners to talk about school supplies. Start with the basics. I love to do CI quizzes to start. Next, do the chat about what’s in lockers. After gaining some confidence, they do the writing. Lastly, they plan their backpack…
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Spanish Class Activity: My Body Bio
Project: My Body Bio Version #1 Objective: Students will create a visual and written presentation about the human body in Spanish, describing body parts, their functions, and their importance in daily life. Instructions: Personal Information: Answer the following questions about yourself in Spanish. ¿Cómo te llamas? (What is your name?) ¿Cuántos años tienes? (How old…
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Memoir Project – Days 1 & 2
Past Tense Practice: Memoir Project – Days 1 & 2 Memoirs are a fun way to personalize practicing the past tense in a new language. Consider this activity: Using your styrofoam board, map, and flags, mark the places where you have lived or traveled. Please note that students can do these digitally, too, on a…
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Spanish Language Learning Card Game: Las Siete Familias
Spanish Language Learning Card Game: Las Siete Familias (“The Seven Families”) is a classic French card game that’s similar to “Go Fish.” In this version, the “families” are Spanish verbs, and each card in a family represents a specific conjugation form of that verb. What Does Each Card Represent? Each family corresponds to one Spanish…
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Teaching Languages: True or False — A Simple, Powerful Activity for Spanish Classes
In my video I demonstrate a favourite classroom routine for Teaching Languages: True or False. I use it all the time to practise vocabulary, grammar and verb tenses — in the clip I focus on emotions, but the technique is flexible and easy to adapt. Below I’ll walk you through how to prepare, run and…
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Teaching Time in Spanish: Effective Strategies
“Teaching telling time in Spanish can be really tough.” In my video I walk through why telling time in Spanish often feels difficult for learners and share practical, classroom-ready strategies you can use tomorrow. If you’ve noticed students struggle with analog clocks or with Spanish time expressions, this guide will give you simple, high-impact activities…
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Inside & Outside – Describing Ourselves: Spanish Class Activity
Inside & Outside – Describing Ourselves Learning to describe ourselves is an important part of communicating in any language. In Spanish, we can use adjectives to talk about who we are on the outside (our physical appearance) and on the inside (our personality, values, likes, and emotions). This activity will help you practice both! Objective:…
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Spanish 1 Traditional Curriculum Overview
Overview of Traditional Spanish Curriculum (Levels 1–4) I curated this overview of what is typically taught in Spanish levels 1 through 4 to provide general insight and help set expectations as you build your course. That said, I want to emphasize something important: make your class work for you. Use this framework as a guide—not…