Spanish Speaking Activities for Winter

Do you use the season to your advantage? In Spanish class, we can help our students reach greater proficiency levels by giving them LOTS of topics to speak and write about! Even if the current unit has nothing to do with a particular season, there’s no reason you can’t work that in! Try these ideas for Spanish Speaking Activities for Winter!

Spanish Speaking Activities for Winter Using Task Cards

In my humble opinion, there is no faster and easier way to get students speaking each day than using task cards. Task cards can come in many different forms. Some can be very structured for beginning students and practically give students the exact thing they should say. But THESE task cards are open-ended! They give students a scenario, and they use their language creatively to talk about the topic!

Here are some different ways to use these task cards as Spanish speaking activities:

Display one card on your Smartboard or projector. Ask students to record their answers.
Display one card at a time on your Smartboard. Ask students to tell a story to their neighbor. The neighbor must ask 2 follow up questions. Students can change roles that same day with a new task card, or the next day!
Pass out a task card to everyone in the room. Give each student 2 minutes (or however much time you want!) to tell their neighbor a story.

All of the above activities can be quick ways to start class or to fill a bit of extra time.

spanish speaking activities for winter — These task cards can be cut and laminated so you can use and re-use them!

Here is another way to use task cards for speaking activities:

Pass out a rubric sheet to each student. Their name goes at the very top.
Have students move their desks so that everyone has a partner and their desks are shoulder to shoulder. Display a task card.
Pick a side (right or left). These people will be the story-tellers for several turns. (You can change this based on how long your classes are– let’s say 5 turns.)
The teacher sets some parameters. Things like how much time, what tense to use, minimum number of sentences, etc can be added, changed or suggested for each round.
For round one, the speaker will pass their feedback rubric to their listener. The listener will take notes to give helpful feedback.
For round 2, all the speakers shift chairs. Now they have a new listener! They get a new task card and tell another story. The new listener gives them feedback. This repeats through round 5.
For round 6, students switch roles. Now the listeners are the speakers! You can use the same scenarios or different ones.

The best thing about this is that my students report that they get better with every round! Some are able to say more without long pauses, think of more details, feel more confident conjugating… it’s a great confidence booster for students! And since the partner is an active listener, no one is bored!

Snow Ball Fight for Winter Speaking Activities

Why fight the energy that a snow storm brings? When students are excited, use that to your advantage with this Snow Ball Fight Speaking Game!

Create paper snow balls. I would say 30-35 is a good number!
Write a word associated with winter on each one. Mix them up- use some nouns, some verbs and some adjectives!
If you have the time or a student aide, print them, cut them out and laminate them. Make enough sets for 1/2 of your class.
Pair students up.
Ask Student A to pick 8 snow balls. (You can of course change this number!)
That student must make up a story with the words they chose!
Switch roles!

Fun variation: Have Student B choose the words for Student A. Will they be nice, or give them a weird mix of words?!

Easier for the teacher variation: Print out 2 sets of words on a paper. (This will save you the cutting and laminating, but it’s a little less fun for the students!)

Spanish Speaking Activties

don’t have to be boring or the same ole thing! Sometimes it’s helpful to have tasks that are familiar to students, and other times it’s fun to mix things up! And don’t forget to have them do a self-reflection or a peer feedback on their speaking activities! Helping our students to use their language creatively is so rewarding! Feliz invierno!