The first day of school can be tricky and stressful to plan for. Sometimes it’s even trickier when it’s a mix of students you already know, or who already know each other. You don’t start from scratch like you do on the first day of Spanish 1, so what do you do? Let’s talk about the first day of Spanish 2!
Name Games and Activities for the First Day of School
First off, check out your roster. Are all of your students kids you have had before, and have had class together? In some settings, students have been in class together for years and could probably tell you second cousins’ names! But, sometimes it’s a mix of students you’ve had before and new students. If that’s the case, here are some name games and activities for the first day of school.
“The Ball Game”
This one is super simple. Toss the ball, ask questions. You can also get a lot of use out of it by simply switching up the questions they ask each other. You can adjust this by level of students and their comfort level, and it works great to review basics, too!
Name Tag Tents
These foldable name tag tents are a great, low stress option for students. They’re also super helpful if your memory tends to get a little rusty over the summer when you have ~200 students! Start the day off by setting out crayons and colored pencils and letting students decorate their name tags. Keep these up on the desks until everyone feels confident with everyone else’s name.
I would consider these a must if your students from the past year(s) have been shuffled at all. Step one at community building is knowing each others’ names!
All About Me Posters
Another relaxed way to start the first day of Spanish 2 is creating a poster with information about themselves, or designing a Slides presentation to introduce themselves. Depending on your students, you might have them rotate and “present” their projects to each other when they finish. They also are perfect for decorating your classroom!
Bulletin Board Ideas for Spanish Class
Some of my favorite bulletin board ideas for back to school aren’t complete until your students add their flair! Check out these options for some punny name fun:
Building Relationships and Classroom Community
If your students already know each other well and there is zero need for any name reminders at all, then let’s move onto games and ways to reconnect after a summer apart!
The Ball Game that I linked above is a great option, of course, and if your students are up for a challenge you can give them a word bank of questions to ask each other. They can be about their summers, their favorites, what they’re looking forward to about the year – anything! This can be done in the target language or the shared language.
If your students know each other’s names, but there’s room to learn about each other, try out these icebreaker convo cards! Help your students start talking about themselves and their interests at the beginning of the year while getting to know their classmates. Printable and digital options included so you can use them in any situation!
Creating a social media profile either about themselves or to share their summer at a glance is a low stress option that allows your talkers to talk to each other while they work. Your students who might be feeling a little overwhelmed by all the people time back at school will appreciate being able to just color!
For students and classes that are back together after a summer apart, have them share about their summers with this print or post and go presentation that’s perfect for back to school!
Review Activities for the First Day of Spanish 2
Sometimes you want to combine the getting to know you and icebreaker activities with a little review. It’s been a few months since most of them have done any Spanish! While the Ball Game, About Me posters, and Mi Verano activities all combine getting to know you with a little review, I thought it might help your plans to share some fun ways to ease back into Spanish with your level 2 students!
Spanish Cognates Writing Activity
You know how much I love starting the year with a cognates unit for Spanish 1! Let’s bring it back for Spanish 2.
This Spanish Cognates Roll a Story activity is the perfect way to get your students to be a little silly with the language as they get back into things! Students roll a die 4 times to determine key elements of their story. Then, students write a short story in Spanish and add details as needed. You can do lots of reading activities with them when they’re done, too!
Do a Reading Material Race! This is a great way to get your students flipping through your classroom library. After you’ve reminded them what cognates are, pass out reading materials, put a timer on the screen, and have them race to find as many as they can! Just have them write them up on the whiteboard or a big piece of butcher paper. When the time is up, go through them together and have students guess meaning.
This Cognates Bulletin Board and Activity Pages includes 6 worksheet pages you can use to reinforce cognates. Or, you can print and put them in your folder for an easy emergency sub plan!
Brain Break Games
Several of my favorite brain breaks are actually great to just play with the language! Check out the blog post here to see them all:
If I had to pick 5 brain breaks to use as review I would choose:
- Partes del cuerpo
- Diez/Cien (instructions in the Slides here)
- Days of the week song (instructions in the Slides here)
- “Run” and touch a color
- Spanish Yoga (stretching) video or dance video
La Tomatina
If you’re getting right back into things, why not share about a super fun piece of culture? Teaching students about La Tomatina is a great way to kick off the new school year!
First Day of Spanish 2
If you’re looking for more to help you with your lesson planning during the first month of school, check out these posts!
This post is helpful as you’re considering your classroom policies and expectations.
As the year starts, you might be wondering how much time you should spend in class speaking Spanish. All of it? Some of it? and HOW do you communicate expectations to students and guardians? Check out this post on 90% time in the target language here!
If you’re not sure how to start every day, check out this blog post with what to do the first 10 minutes of class. Easy, repeatable, routine!
Establishing classroom routines at the start of the year is a great way to get your classroom management off on the right foot! Check out the post with daily routines, and how I like to start and end each class period here.