Students love to talk about themselves, especially about their families. It’s a great topic to start with when teaching Spanish to beginners. It’s also very useful because we often talk about our families when meeting someone for the first time. So, if you’re looking for some fun ways to teach about family in Spanish, keep reading!
I have created a unit plan that goes along with Así se dice, Level 1, Chapter 2 that combines family with rooms of the house. However, you can still teach this unit without the book as a 3-week unit by itself or along with the rooms of the house as a 6-week unit. Here’s how:
Week 1: Family Vocabulary in Spanish
First, start with words they may already know about family in Spanish. Pass out a chart with the names of family members and have them fill it in with the corresponding word in English:
As you go over the vocabulary, ask common questions about their own family members in Spanish such as: ¿Cómo se llaman tus padres? ¿Tienes hermanos? ¿Tienes una mascota? ¿Cómo se llama la mascota? Es un chico o una chica? ¿Cómo es – es un perro grande o un perro pequeño?
¿Quién es..?
After that, practice using the new vocabulary with photos of popular families from TV, such as Modern Family. You can just upload a photo of the TV family with their names on a slide like this:
Then toss a ball around the room asking your students, ¿Quién es la mamá? ¿Quién es el abuelo? Etc.
Family Trees and using the structure “de”
Next, show them an example of a family tree and teach them how to follow it. This is a good way to practice talking about relationships between family members in Spanish. Again, you can use a recognizable family such as The Simpsons. For example, if you ask ¿Quién es Bart? students can say, Bart es el hermano de Lisa or Bart es el hijo de Homer. This is a good way to teach them that there is no (‘s) in Spanish.
Finally, have students practice asking and answering questions about their own family members and those of their classmates using the question frame: ¿Quién es…? You can do this by passing out notecards and giving students about 5 minutes to write down as many family members as they can think of and their names. Then collect the notecards and tell students that they must listen carefully to what their classmates say because they might be asked about them, too. Next, ask the first student a question: ¿Quién es tu primo? After they respond, ask another student the same question about the first student’s cousin so that they must use the target structure: ___________ es el primo de ___________. Keep going until you get through the whole class.
For an extension activity, you can pass out a new family tree with blanks and have students fill in their names using clues or riddles about their relationships like this one:
Week 2: Teaching possessive adjectives in Spanish
For week 2, continue reviewing the family vocabulary in Spanish in context through reading and real-life listening activities. For example, here is a free listening activity that I created that includes 4 audio/video recordings of native speakers with different accents and a variety of listening comprehension questions for all levels.
As far as reading comprehension, here is a simple one that I’ve created:
A reading like this also introduces them to the possessive adjective “su” and the use of TENER as the story talks about Carlos and the relationships between his family members.
Another fun way to teach possessive adjectives is through the game Plaza de Toros where each student pair gets a copy of the gameboard. This game is a variation of the flyswatter game, Matamoscas, where everyone can participate at once. You call out a vocabulary term and they have to “slap” the correct definition before their opponent. The winner gets to write their initials inside the bull. For better management, tell students to raise both hands up by their ears. You can make extra gameboards for the over-achievers!
After playing the game, you can see if they can come up with the rule for using possessive adjectives.
You can follow up the game with a longer reading that reviews all of the new content such as La Familia Manzana which is a silly story in the present tense with audio about a family of apples from the point of view of a Macintosh Apple. Another high-interest story is La Familia iPhone v. Android which is about a family feud between the two most popular cellphones brands (which your students probably own)!
Looking for more activities for teaching possessive adjectives en tu clase? Click here.
Week 3: Teaching Tener + age
By week 3, students should be ready to add the verb TENER in order to talk about how many family members they have and their ages. First, you can introduce the new concept to the whole class by playing this video with a fun song: ¿Cúantos años tienes?
After the song, you can toss a ball around the room and ask oral questions about the video or about your students themselves, such as: ¿Cúantos años tienes? ¿Cuántos años tiene tu heramano/a mayor/menor?
Finally, students can complete an Age Gap activity with partners like this one:
Once your students have mastered family vocabulary in Spanish, you can sum up the unit with an authentic project such as a Family Album, or you can continue the unit by extending their knowledge of possessive adjectives to describe the rooms and furniture in their homes.
Other Filler Games to Teach Family Vocabulary in Spanish
La Profesora v. La Clase
- Point to a picture and say the name in Spanish.
- If you are correct, the whole class has to repeat it. If you are wrong, they all have to stay silent. If they all stay silent, they get the point. If not, you get the point.
- First to 5 wins!
Catchphrase
- In teams of 3-4, one team member picks a vocabulary word out of a bag. They must keep the word hidden from their teammates.
- The team member describes the word entirely in Spanish for their team to guess, without saying the word or acting it out.
- Each team member has 1 minute to get their team to guess as many words as they can.
- Note: This can also be done as a whole class with one person in the “hot seat” while the class uses circumlocution to get them to guess it.
Enchilada
- Students line up shoulder to shoulder.
- Give them a vocabulary word in Spanish.
- They have to spell it out loud in Spanish, one letter at a time down the line.
- After they finish spelling, the next person gives the definition in English.
- Then the next person says, “Enchilada” (or whatever funny word you want).
- The next person is out for no reason at all.
- The last person standing is the winner.
Ready to get started with your Familia Unit? For all of these activities and more, click the button below!
Happy Teaching!
