3 Easy Week Before Vacation Activities for Spanish Class

Who else is looking for some easy week before vacation activities for Spanish class this year? Students are starting to check out or physically leave for their winter break, and teachers are exhausted too. How can we make our week before vacation productive, fun and stress-free? Keep reading for 3 easy week before vacation activities for your high school Spanish students!

1. A Fun Activity With Minimal Correcting

One of the hallmarks of teacher survival is planning week before vacation activities that do not leave you with hours of correcting during your vacation!

I recommend starting with a group challenge! Whatever the activity here, when groups work together, you will only correct one paper per group. This allows you to give helpful and specific feedback, and you can even have a grade for your gradebook, but in 1/4 of the time! I advise starting the week before vacation with one of these so that you can correct the 5 papers (assuming you have 5 groups) during planning before the week is over!

Need a recommendation for a fun group challenge? My go-to activities are always writing challenges! I give my students a choice between 2 prompts. (This gives them some autonomy, which is a hallmark of culturally responsive pedagogy, and it makes photocopying more manageable!)

The prompts are high interest either because they require invention, creativity or imagination. Sometimes I ask the students to draw what they’re talking about at the end! (That’s a great idea for fast finishers… it’s fun and keeps students engaged, but it’s not the most important part. If other groups don’t get to it, it’s ok!) I love to hang up their artwork in my classroom!

Need some ideas? Here are some winter-themed writing challenges that my students love!

Winter Writing Prompts for Group Challenges

Create a New Years Mascot Group Writing Challenge

How About a Game for the Week Before Vacation Activity?

I notice that as we approach a long vacation, especially when holidays are involved, energy gets high with my students! I try my best to harness that energy into a high impact game as one of my week before vacation activities.

The game should be something that keeps students in the target language but that really interests them. Choose one that is focused on proficiency as opposed to one-word answers.

Try to select a game that is out of the norm. So, Blooket is not my pick because we use that regularly.

Need some suggestions?

Winter Themed Snowball Fight Speaking Game

Día de Reyes Reading with Activities: Game, Comprehension Questions, Cultural Comparisons, Speaking and Listening!

Don’t Forget Culture!

One of the best discoveries I’ve made for the Week Before Vacation Activities is Escape Rooms! You have 2 options, create your own, or find one that is already created. I have to say, if I was not a creator myself, this would be a time when investing a few dollars would be well worth it! Once you have a ready-to-use Escape Room, there is NO PREP! That sounds perfect for those last 2 days before winter break!

The Escape Room I use each year is about how Christmas is celebrated in Spanish-speaking countries. It’s all digital, using a Google Form to enter the “codes” they need to unlock the next clue. And each clue asks them to read or view or research some specific aspect of how Christmas is celebrated. Students work together in groups to solve the clues…. and I’m tricky! They have to, for example, watch a video and answer questions. And then, the correct answers to the questions end up being part of the clue to solve the code. So if the answers are ABBCB, the code they need to enter could be 12232.

This activity is a no-prep, no teacher energy activity!! And the students get SO into it! Hint: I always show them what the winning group gets for solving the entire escape room first! (Usually a bag of candy). It serves as motivation! It feels wonderful to see students learning and working hard, and they don’t even realize that’s what’s happening!

There are tons of different kinds of escape rooms! But if you want to try mine, here it is! You need 2 regular periods or 1 block period, in my experience!