Learning a new language includes learning a combination of essential daily words, as well as other vocabulary and phrases that help you to express yourself. Understanding the days in Spanish can help students learn how to communicate more effectively and even manage planning and scheduling. Learning these essentials is easy with the right tools. Here I’ll provide you with tips and tricks for simple and effective learning, just like what you’d find in my elementary Spanish curriculum.
What Are the Days in Spanish?
In English, we know the days of the week as Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. However, in Spanish, the days of the week take on a whole new set of names that you will notice do not get capitalized. They also begin with Monday, not Sunday!
The Days in Spanish Are:
- lunes
- martes
- miércoles
- jueves
- viernes
- sábado
- domingo
To learn these words, children will need to focus on spelling, pronunciation, and recognizing these words when reading or listening. When learning the days of the week, your best tool will be repetition and ongoing practice. A couples ways to help your learners is to use these words in sentences and point them out on the calendar! Check out below for more ways to teach and practice this essential vocabulary.
Teaching the Days in Spanish Using Practice Tools
We often teach children their days of the week fairly early on in school, and this is a great lesson for new Spanish learners, too! With the right approach, teachers and parents can help their students and children to learn the days of the week with ease and empower them to read signs, schedules, stories, and more!
Learn the Words
When teaching the days in Spanish, it is important to start with the words themselves. Parents and teachers will want to focus on helping students to learn each word, giving time for learners to connect with each individual term and its English counterpart in a written format. Creating flashcards with the Spanish word on one side and the English on the other is a great way to get this process started. The flashcards then can be used to play games and do activities to facilitate their mastery. More ideas like this are available on my Spanish games and activities page.
Listening and Repeating
Reading and writing are important, but students can gain even more when they learn how to recognize these words when they are spoken out loud and when they learn how to say them themselves.
Help students by using lessons with audio to teach them the sound and pronunciation of the words. After they understand how they are said, help them to practice saying the words out loud and in sentences if possible. My Chart the Weather and Days Lesson can help you do this without having to plan anything!
Focus on the Order
Most of us learn by following recognizable patterns, and the Spanish days of the week are one area where this really matters because we are so used to it. Starting students off by introducing them to the days of the week in order can help them to learn their days in Spanish in a way that makes it much easier for them to remember them. Singing the days in order to a familiar tune can help facilitate this learning.
You can use the flashcards of the days your student creates to do a “putting them in order” activity. Place them on a table out of order, Spanish side face up. Then have the student put them in order. Once your learner gets good at putting them in order, set a timer to see how quickly he/she can do it! Or have two students who enjoy competition race each other.
Once your student really knows the days in Spanish, you can ask about specific days separate from the other days. Students may still consider the order when answering questions, but it will encourage them to think more critically when recalling the right word.
Use Them in Sentences
Learning the days in Spanish is important, but what really matters is using them in context. After learners master the words themselves, it is important to focus on the context they belong in during conversations.
For new learners, it helps to focus on very simple phrases or even combine both English and Spanish to help them understand how these words fit into the context. For more advanced learners, you can leverage existing Spanish phrases and add days of the week in to make them more complete.
Ongoing Practice
Although students can benefit from spending more time practicing with various activities, the best practice happens after the lessons and activities have been completed. Be sure to continuously engage students and discuss what they learned to keep the information fresh. You can do this in many simple ways, such as reviewing them in a daily warm-up. Your review can include quickly saying or writing them in order, asking what day today is, what day yesterday was, what day tomorrow will be, and so on. Regular practice will help them to retain the information and become more fluent in this new language!
Easily Teach the Days in Spanish Today!
Students thrive when we give them easy and fun ways to use Spanish in day-to-day conversations. With my downloadable, step-by-step lesson on the days of the week and charting the weather, they can learn how to have discussions about their schedules and the world around them too!
To get started, you can order my downloadable Chart the Weather and Days of the Week Lesson with Audio, which is ideal for students ages 8 and up. No Spanish experience is needed by parent, teacher, or student. This lesson will develop their skills in understanding, speaking, reading, and writing about these things.
As you work together with your students to learn more about these helpful parts of the Spanish language, you will watch their skills and confidence grow. They will become confident because they will be doing activities they enjoy and that help them easily master the content. The materials are delivered immediately to you via email upon purchase, so you can start learning Spanish with your students today!