You most likely have 2 ½ days to get through in the week leading up to the first nice break of the school year: Thanksgiving! The kids are going crazy and you desperately need Thanksgiving Day Spanish lesson plans that keep them engaged without bouncing off of the walls. But, you have no time to plan these lessons between baking pies, going grocery shopping, cleaning the house, and coordinating travel plans! Let’s talk about filling 2 ½ days with Thanksgiving Day Spanish lessons that require little prep on your part and keep students in the target language.
1. Thank You Note to a Teacher
There is no better feeling for a teacher than receiving a thank you note from a student. I personally keep a binder filled with positive notes and recognitions that my students filled out for me. It is my “happy binder.” Why not take these few days before break to make a teacher’s day? Every student will choose a teacher at their school that they want to thank for some reason or another. They will write a thank you note to express their gratitude in Spanish & English to give to this teacher. I don’t usually allow students to do translation activities, but there is benefit to these activities and translation is a true skill that must be taught. Plus, this allows the teacher that receives the note to understand it in English and see that your students are quite the Spanish students! Here is a short article in Spanish that goes through the steps for How to Write a Thank You Note.
2. Recipes or Cooking Show
Pretend your students are on a cooking show and have them choose a Thanksgiving recipe that they love. They don’t even need to bring in ingredients or actually make the dish, but they can still explain how it is made or write out a recipe to share with the class. Either activity would require students to find the ingredient names in Spanish and come up with a few verbs to explain the instructions for making the dish. Tie in grammar to these activities by requiring students to use commands (or mandatos). If they don’t yet know commands, stick to present tense or even “debes + infinitive” or “tienes que + infinitive.”
3. Estoy agradecido por…
The classic “I am thankful for…” activity can easily be done with any level Spanish students. Yes, even your novice students! With just two months of Spanish, even the novice students can make a list of what they are thankful for with cognates: familia, animales, chocolate, tenis, televisión, teléfono, etc. Check out 7 ways to express gratitude in Spanish class here.
How to present a Spanish “I am thankful for…” project
- Draw a tree or use construction paper to make one, either 2D or 3D! On each leaf, students will write something that they are thankful for, so they have a tree filled with gratitude!
- Draw a turkey by tracing your hand, on each of the feathers, students write something they are thankful for.
- Make a mini folding booklet with 2 or three pieces of paper that students fold in half or quarters. On each page, students will draw what they are thankful for and write a sentence describing it. For a true challenge, make it an ABC thankful book – they need to come up with something that they are thankful for that starts with each letter of the alphabet. Here is a printable version!
- More advanced students can write a paragraph and draw images to represent the things that they are thankful for. Here are 15 fun gratitude writing prompts!
- No matter which option you choose, be sure to post these on a bulletin board or display in your classroom!
4. Digital Thanksgiving Google Slides Project
For the really no-prep option, assign your students this Google Slides Thanksgiving project, where they complete an interactive Google Slides with 5 things they are thankful for, their family traditions, their favorite Thanksgiving foods, and more. This project really allows you to get to know your students. You will be amazed at how open they are to sharing their family traditions and opening up about their celebrations! This project has lots of 5 star reviews all saying similar things like buyer K.L.: “Such a good opportunity to discuss Thanksgiving in the Spanish class. Students enjoyed personalizing and talking about their preferences. Gracias!”
5. My Plate
Students will draw a plate of food that they typically eat on Thanksgiving. They label each item of food and then they can present their plate to the class. In a virtual setting, students can always do a recording of themselves talking about the different foods, and in a live session, students can present in small or large groups. For additional use out of this activity, you could have students form pairs or groups of three and they can compare or contrast their plates. This activity also pairs well with the Recipe or Cooking Show activity. Once they have a plate full of food, they choose one to identify the ingredients and cooking steps.
6. Read a Fun Text
Option 1: LEGEND OF THE CORN – BOLIVIA
Corn is a staple at many Thanksgiving tables. Learn about the Bolivian legend of the corn. As the story goes, many years ago, a husband and wife, along with their tribes were defending their land in current-day Bolivia from the Spanish colonizers. An arrow was accidentally shot at the wife, killing her. When her husband buried her, his abundant tears watered the ground above her tomb, causing a new plant to grow… corn! He realizes how this plant resembles his beautiful wife, and it grows and expands across the Americas.
This resource comes with 3 differentiated versions of the text, pre-reading text, vocabulary activities, comprehension questions, images to retell the legend and more!
Option 2: NEWS ARTICLES
Newsela is a great source for Spanish news articles. The best feature (other than being completely free!) is that each article can be modified to a different word count with just one click! With Newsela, you have differentiation at your fingertips – check out my blog post about other ways to use news articles and current events.
These are some Thanksgiving themed news articles in Spanish that you can read with your students. Plus, I’ve compiled some post-reading activities that pair well with each article for you!
The science behind Thanksgiving gourd decorations
After reading this article, have students illustrate the article by drawing pictures that match various sentences throughout the text. They should illustrate what the gourds look like, why they were used throughout history, and how they are used today for example. Or students could make a poster explaining the history of gourds and you can hang it in your classroom or in the hallway!
Why we should say “Thank You”
After reading about why gratitude is important, you can do either of the activities previously mentioned: I am thankful for or write a thank you note to a family member, friend, teacher, classmate, etc. Understanding why gratitude is so powerful can make the post-activity much more meaningful for your students. This article pairs perfectly with this guide for writing a thank you note, which students should read before writing their own.
7. Relative (Grandparent) Interviews Over Thanksgiving
Encourage your students to interview their family members over Thanksgiving break. (Here is an article for inspiration.) It doesn’t have to just be grandparents, but it could be aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, anyone. Get to know their life story. Young students, especially high schoolers, don’t tend to think of their relatives as having interesting lives or backstories, but they are so wrong! Just sitting down to talk to a relative and ask questions about their life can spark truly inspiring conversations, pass along family history, and unite relatives. This could be their best Thanksgiving yet!
So, after reading the article, have your students come up with a list of 10 questions they could ask family members during the break to start a conversation and to learn more rather than sitting on their phone or joining the kids table to avoid adult conversation!
Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy the time with your family, eat lots of food, and take time for yourself!
