Are you planning a clothing unit in your Spanish class and looking for great games and activities to use? Well you are in luck because this post is full of ideas that I used to teach Spanish clothing vocabulary in my classroom.
Cataplum
Clothing cataplum is a great game to review clothing vocabulary. My students love friendly competition along with the element of luck that the cataplum cards add. This game requires clothing picture cards, clothing word cards, and four cataplum cards. Then put all the cards into a container and have the kids sit in a circle. Each player takes a turn by drawing one card out of the container. If a cataplum is drawn the player must return all cards to the container. If a picture card is drawn the player says the picture word in Spanish. If a word cards is drawn the player says the word in English. If player says the card name incorrectly they return the card.
Play until all the cards are gone or time is up. The winner is the player with the most cards.
This game is quick and easy and can be used as a time filler for a quick 5 minute game or you can have kids play several rounds. This is a game that works better in groups of 3-6. I have created a cataplum clothing game that you can look at here or you can make your own.
Relay Races
My students really like relay races this year so I created several for them during our clothing unit. Here are two of their favorite.
- I split the class into 2 teams. Each team lined up on one side of the room with a stack of word cards face down by them. On the other side of the room each team had a pile of clothes. When the relay started the first person from each team drew a card, read it, and raced to the other side of the room to find that item of clothing,put it on and race back. Then the next team member would go. The relay continues until one team finishes their pile of clothes.
- We also did a relay race where one person had to read a clothing word, tell their partner that clothing word ,and their partner had to go find the article of clothing and match them up. Then the next person read and asked for the following item. The first team to finish all of their matches won. This game really got my students talking in Spanish to each other. They were not experts at the vocabulary yet so they really had to work together to find the right item of clothing. I added a challenge by adding 5 seconds to their ending time every time I heard English. They really stayed in the target language after this.
Charades
Who doesn’t love charades?I know my class loves any form of acting. For set up all you need is either a pile of clothing picture cards or word cards. Split the class into groups. Have one student stand up in front give him or her one minute to act out as many cars as possible while their team guesses. Then switch and have the other team do the same. You can play for either as long as kids remain interested or until one team gets a certain amount of points. This is a great way to practice those vocabulary words over and over and over again.
Guess Who
Remember playing Guess Who as a child? Trying to guess your friend’s character as quickly as possible? Well Guess Who is back in my Spanish class. I created a Guess Who board that my students used to play first as a whole group and then with a partner. Because we are talking about clothing my students had to start by only guessing the clothing that the people were wearing not hair color or eye color or anything else. This really helped solidify clothing vocabulary that is commonly worn. I also gave them the sentence structure to use when asking: Is he/she wearing… This helped use the vocabulary in a sentence over and over again. I love it when kids can work together in pairs and practice talking to each other using the vocabulary that we have been practicing.
Clothing Sort by Season
I had my kindergarten through second grade classes complete this activity. First we did it as whole group and then they completed it independently. We used clothing picture cards, the four season cards, along with a pocket chart. I separated the pocket chart into the four seasons and then as I pulled out each picture card I had the students tell me which season that they think it should go in. Then I’d let somebody put it in the correct spot. After we finished as a whole group they went back to their seats and completed a similar activity independently. I went around and talked to them about the different clothing words. This give me the opportunity to talk to individual students and get them talking with me practicing especially those tricky words that I know that they’re having a hard time with.
Clothing Book
We wrapped up our clothing unit in my kindergarten through second grade classes by making a clothing book. Students got to be the authors and designers for their own individual books. I made a template book for each student. For each page they needed to cut out a picture of a clothing item from a magazine glue it in the box and then at the bottom finish the sentence; yo llevo… So for example if they find pants they could cut them out put them in the box and then at the bottom say; yo llevo pantalones. Each student had to find 14 different words to add to their book and then they could read it independently. They got to take it home and share it with their families. Students really enjoyed doing this and felt very accomplished being able to create a book themselves.
Clothing Poster Project
My third through sixth grade students wrapped up their clothing unit by creating group posters that they presented to the class. Each group picked two seasons and drew and colored a person wearing at least five different articles of clothing that fit the season. Their picture had to be colorful and they had to label each clothing item that they had in their picture.Then they had to write out a short paragraph describing their person in the season to present to the class. Students really got into this project and it was definitely doable for students who had only been in my Spanish class for two months.
This is in no way everything we did but it does hit the highlights. I always give my students a picture vocabulary sheet to add to their notebooks. We reference this list all the time. Which activity are you excited to try out in your class. I would love to hear how it goes!
Here are some more beginning of the year resources available on Teachers Pay Teachers.
