Trivia games are perfect for crazy weeks! They are highly engaging so your hyper students will stay on task AND they can be played in a snap! Just put students in teams and have them get together with their team and grab whiteboards, pens, and erasers. While they are doing that, you can open up the PowerPoint and write any words they might need on the board.

No time to print off a score tracking sheet for each team? No problem! Have each team quickly make their own on a piece of paper by looking at the game board you’ve projected! They just need to make a table with 6 rows and 5 columns. As you introduce the 5 categories for the game, have them write the categories across the top row.

Trivia games are fun because they are cooperative AND a great review! Click the images below to check out a few teacher favorites.

Lotería, Spanish Bingo, can easily be prepped on the fly and is a great way to reinforce vocabulary.

Put up a vocabulary list of at least 24 words. I always project mine. If you don’t have a projector, you can quickly write the words on the whiteboard. Elicit words in Spanish and English from students for extra learning! While you are putting up the list, have students make a 5 x 5 table on a scratch piece of paper. They can write GRATIS in the middle square. Then have them fill in the squares with vocabulary words in Spanish. No repeating words! I always draw an example on the board the first couple of times we play. 

While students are filling in their squares, quickly write all the vocab. words on slips of paper or print them off and cut them up, one word per piece of paper. Mix all the pieces of paper up in front of you. 

Once students have their Lotería cards ready, start calling out the vocabulary words like this:

Teacher: Apple. (pause) APPLE. (pause) ¿Cómo se dice APPLE en español?

Students: ¡La manzana!

The first student with five across, five down, or five diagonally wins! 

Students can keep track of the vocab. words called on their cards with little scraps of paper or by drawing different symbols on the square each round. Round 1 might be a smiley face, Round 2 could be a star, etc. Students always have fun coming up with the symbols if you want to ask them for ideas! I like to play where the winner gets to pick the next one sometimes.

Need a 30-minute activity with less than two minutes of prep? Try task cards! While a student response sheet is included, if you don’t have time to print it off and make copies you can have students take out a piece of paper and number it 1-48 while you print and cut the task cards. Ask students to help you cut the cards and hang them up around the room as they finish! Students are great about helping and always have fun “hiding” the cards from their classmates. (General rule of thumb for hiding task cards: You need to be able to see at least 25% of the task card. No fair putting the entire thing inside a book, a box, etc.)

Click HERE for a blog post I wrote for Secondary Spanish Space with 10 ideas for using task cards in Spanish class! Click the images below to check out a few of my most popular sets.

Another great activity you can do at a moment’s notice is a dice activity! All you need to do for a dice activity like writing sentences or math problems is put students in pairs, have one student in the group come get two dice from you while the other one numbers a piece of paper 1-whatever, and write the subject pronouns and verbs to conjugate on the board if doing sentences. You can find step-by-step instructions for dice activities by clicking HERE for a blog post I wrote all about using dice in the Spanish classroom!

5.  CONVERSATION CARDS

Like task cards, conversation cards can be prepped in a snap. Just print, cut, and go! Conversation cards can be used in a variety of ways and are a fabulous way to get your students speaking in the target language AND keep them there. Here are three ways to use them that take less than two minutes to prep.

Musical Cards

Lay cards out around the room. Only put out as many cards as you have pairs. Play music and instruct students to wander around the room until the music stops. Once the music stops, students need to quickly find a card. There can only be two students at each card! If there are already two students at a card, students need to go find a different one. Once everyone is in a pair at a card, they need to take turns answering the question on the card with their partner. This is a great way to get students mingling with other students in the class and expose them to music in Spanish!

Fishbowl Activity

Give each student a card and then quickly divide the class into two groups. Have one group make a large circle. Have each person in the second group go stand in front of someone in the circle, facing the person. You should have two circles now, one inside the other. Have students greet the person across from them in Spanish. Then have the outer group ask the inner group the question on their card. The inner circle needs to answer in a complete sentence and then ask their question. Once that is done, both students need to say gracias to their partner and then wait for a signal to rotate. Once you give the signal, the INNER circle moves one person to the right. Repeat the process of greeting, asking, answering, asking, answering, thanking, and rotating one person to the right until everyone is back where they started. This is a quick process. Students are with their partners no more than 30-45 seconds at a time, depending on the question. 

A fishbowl is a great way to get students speaking A LOT of Spanish and in a short amount of time!

Walk & Talk

Hang the cards around the room and have students walk around with a partner. Each time they come to a card, they both need to answer the question in Spanish.

Save yourself time with these ready-to-go conversation card sets! Each set comes with 48 question cards for lots of engagement, speaking, and fun! 

6.  BOOM CARDS

Here are three FREE Boom Card decks!

Click HERE to see all 80+ Boom Card decks in my store!

If you end up using any of these ideas in your class, I would love to hear about it! Please tag me on IG (@laprofeplotts) or let me know on Facebook! As always, if you loved this post, I would greatly appreciate you pinning it for me so others can enjoy it, too! Thank you!