If you use Spanish for You! with your kids at home or to teach classes, you already know that they make flashcards. By the end of a school year they have a lot of Spanish vocabulary and verb flashcards.
The reason students make so many Spanish flashcards is because it is a great way to begin learning new words, and they become a tool that can be used for many activities. I always encourage parents and teachers to have students write the words on the flashcards themselves because that is the process for beginning the learning.
Then, those flashcards are used for lots of hands-on, effective learning activities. Here are 10 Spanish flashcard activities for one to two people.
1. ¿Cuál falta? (What’s Missing?) – lay out several Spanish flashcards on a table. One person covers his eyes while the other takes one away. Then the person has to guess ¿Cuál falta?
2. Create a Board Game – Lay out any flashcards in the form of a game board like in the picture above. Find two items to use as game pieces and one die. Take turns rolling the die, move to a square, and say it in Spanish. If correct you stay. If not, you go back.
You can use Spanish verb flashcards for this too. Just place them all English side up or all Spanish side up. Having to say the Spanish is harder.
3. Grab the Vocab – See who can grab the word they hear first. Instructions here.
4. Matamoscas (Swat the Flies) – See who can swat the word first. Instructions here.
5. Alphabetize – Put a group of Spanish vocabulary or Spanish verb flashcards in alphabetical order. With younger students, you may have to help with this process. It may help to have a copy of the Spanish alphabet in view too.
6. Make Sentences – Using a combination of Spanish verb and vocabulary flashcards, put them together to make sentences. Sometimes I have students make extra “connector” word flashcards to help with the sentences. These would be:
- en = in, on, at
- con = with
- y = and
- o = or
7. Silly Run on Sentence – Grab several Spanish vocabulary and verb flashcards and keep putting them together to make a silly run-on sentence. Kids enjoy this.
8. Conversation Activity – Place a group of Spanish vocabulary and Spanish verb flashcards in separate piles. Pick up one vocabulary and one verb flashcard and create a question to ask another person. That person answers the question.
9. Tell a Story – Use a group of Spanish verb and vocabulary flashcards to tell a story. It can be a silly story too. You may want to choose a character or characters and then be sure to use verb flashcards in the form that you will need. For example, if the story is about you and your friend, you will need Spanish verb flashcards in the “I” and “we” forms.
10. Group Flashcards – Use your Spanish flashcards to put them in vocabulary groups like all kitchen related words or school related words. Also, you can group verbs like all “I” forms together, all “we forms, etc. Spanish for You! students do this a lot with Spanish verb flashcards in order to begin learning patterns for the conjugations.
Also, you can time yourself to see how quickly you can group them, or even sort them on a wall.You can keep them on the wall to have a visual all the time. See picture below.
Spanish flashcards are a great learning and practice tool! There are lots of ways to make and use them on computers, but I believe that the actual writing of them and using them with your hands instills learning more solidly.
Give it a try and enjoy!
Debbie
If you’re looking for a Spanish curriculum for your classes or homeschool, check out Spanish for You!