Numbers in Spanish: Some ready-to-use activities

I feel that I am always trying to sneak Spanish numbers into my curriculum. Numbers on their own are not very exciting, and I try to build my lessons on communicative (and hopefully engaging) objectives. If there is not an established and well articulated language curriculum, I often encounter students who are tired of going through several years of repetitive lessons: greetings, numbers, colors. The challenge is always finding interactive and quick ways to refine and review these skills, while still offering structure for the students who are starting with limited experience.

Uno was always my review card game of choice - until I discovered the magic and ease of ¡Pesca!

Out of everything I have tried over the years, here are a few resources and activities that have been successful to review and practice the numbers in Spanish. These are ready-to-go activities that you can use this week if you'd like... or today in the next class period, if you are quick on your feet. (You probably are, if you are a teacher.) These are things I have used successfully in classes with a wide range of levels and experience: from students fluent in Spanish to students who are in the first Spanish class of their life.

Review Materials:

As I mentioned, in my teaching environments I have needed materials to review and expand upon student's existing knowledge of numbers.

These are activities I give to my students with minimal instructions, so that they can work together or on their own to figure out the patterns. (My cooperating teacher during student teaching called this "learning by osmosis" and I love it.) After students have had the chance to try out the task on their own and explain their thought process, I explain things in more detail as needed - to the group or to individual students.

 

Review 1: Number Manipulatives

Resource: Number Manipulatives (1-15)
For: Grades 1-4 (depending on your program goals and students' past experience)
Task: Look at the words and try to say them in order. Look for any patterns that you notice. Then cut out the words, shuffle them around, and try to put them in order again.
Further explanation if needed: Help students with the pronunciation of once , and point out the connection between dos/doce, tres/trece, and so on.

 

Review 2: Word Banks

Resource: Number review with word bank (0-99)
For: Grades 4+, for students who can say the numbers but not necessarily write them.
Task: Start at the top of the paper with numbers 1-15, and then try the tens if you can. Look at the words in the word bank and see if you can put them in the correct order. The most advanced challenge is to see if you can write the numbers at the very bottom of the paper.
Further explanation if needed: Have students count out loud, and help them connect sounds to letters: the c sound in cero, vowel sounds, and so on. Many of my native speaking students had trouble finding the spelling for veinte, and needed explanation on the difference between v & b. Almost everyone needs help with the difference between sesenta and setenta. (I teach students to look for the letters from seis and siete, respectively.)

 

Review 3: Number grid

Resource: Number grid (0-99)
For: Grades 4+, and visual learners. (Often I will print papers with the grid on one side, and the review with word banks on the other, and I let the students choose what side they want to use depending on if they are a chart person or a list person.)
Task: Look at the words printed out on this grid and see if you can fill in the missing numbers. Look for the pattern! In Spanish, you only need to memorize numbers up through 15 and the tens (any numbers with a thick black line around them) in order to say all the numbers through 99.
Further explanation if needed: Model the pattern with the group or individual students: Tens place and ones place. Make sure students are using numbers from the tens column and the ones column - some will accidentally write down treinta y doce instead of treinta y dos. Explain how to write the tens and twenties as one word - I always start by teaching the numbers in their separated form, so that beginning students can see the pattern.

Actividad 1: ¡Pesca!

Possible objectives:

• Yo puedo reconocer y pronunciar los números 1-13 en español.
• Yo puedo usar el verbo tener en español.
• Yo puedo jugar un juego en español sin usar ingles.
  

Ages: 
Grades 3+ (Younger kids will need more modeling and structure, while middle school and up can usually negotiate the rules and figure it out fairly independently.)

Materials:
Several decks of cards, and the vocabulary on the board or on papers for each group.

Time:
Usually takes about 5 minutes to explain, and then students can play as long as you would like (or until you get tired of hearing people yelling "¡Tramposo!" - as nice as it is that they are yelling in the target language.)

Grouping:
Can be played with the whole class, or as an optional extension activity for students who finish other assignments first. (Probably not while others are doing quiet work.) 

Instructions:

1. Check to make sure the class understands the basic rules of Go Fish. (The goal is to collect pairs by asking other players for cards, or "fishing" from the extra cards in the middle of the table.) 
2. If students need reminders about the numbers up through 13, they can have a vocabulary sheet with them. (Aces are 1, the rest of the numbers are as shown on the cards, and I have the kids play the face cards as 11, 12, and 13 to get in a few higher numbers.) You can also play the cards as tens to practice higher numbers. (a 3 would be treinta, for example.)
3. Provide some game phrases for kids to use, and explain that this is a game that can be played entirely in Spanish. I leave this vocabulary on the board. (Click the image for the full-size PDF.)
 
4. Emphasize that students can make a player draw extra cards if they use English, or even Spanglish. (¿Tienes three? Do you have tres?) Have them practice saying ¡En español! in the the most irritating voice possible, with some disapproving finger-waving included. It is a chance to boss each other around in Spanish, and they will police themselves to play only in the target language.
5. Put students in groups. I usually have groups of 3-5, because two person Pesca is a little lame, and groups larger than 5 can get pretty loud.
6. While students play, walk around listen in for pronunciation and participation. Depending on my grading systems or classroom management systems for each class, I give individual participation points or table points for students playing just in Spanish.

Notes:
In my first years of teaching, I used Uno to review both colors and basic numbers. However, that game included more phrases (for skip, draw four, etc.) which meant students had to find and struggle through the translation, rather than playing fairly independently. I like Pesca since it can be played with just the numbers, the verb tener, and a few extra game phrases. (Also, decks of regular playing cards are much cheaper and more versatile than Uno decks!)

Since I usually introduce this activity at the beginning of the year, it is a good way to review or introduce the use of tener, and can launch some other easy communicative practice asking and answering about family, pets, age, and anything else that uses the tener verb. (Be forewarned, the vocabulary word the students will remember most will be tramposo... but they'll be practicing adjective agreement, or sometimes intentionally misusing it.)

Actividad 2: Yo tengo...

Possible objectives:

• Yo puedo leer y pronunciar los números en español.
• Yo puedo usar el verbo tener en español.

Ages: 
Grades 3+

Materials:
A timer (I use this online stopwatch) and these number cards cut into strips so that each student has one number card that says "Yo tengo ___. ¿Tienes ___?" (These are Word documents, so you can edit them based on the number of students in your class. If you have more papers than students, you can offer more advanced students the option to have more than one... but they have to listen carefully!)

• Basic/beginner: Yo tengo 1-24 consecutive
• More advanced: Yo tengo 1-24 random

Time:
The first time through this takes a few minutes to explain and model, and might take around 5 minutes for the whole class to finish the sequence. Once students know the activity, they get much faster. This is a good end-of-the-class activity, as students work to reduce their time (or compete with other classes.)

Grouping:
Whole class. After students are comfortable with the process, this could be used in small groups with different levels of difficulty.

Instructions:

1.  Explain your objective(s) to the students, and say that they are going to try to work together to read through the entire sequence of numbers as quickly as possible. The person who has the "Yo tengo 1" paper will start with "Yo tengo uno. ¿Tienes dos?" which is the prompt for the next student to read theirs: "Yo tengo dos. ¿Tienes 3?" and so on until the end. (If you are using the more advanced set, the numbers are not in order so it is especially essential that students listen for their number!)
   
   
   
2. Give students a moment to check that they know how to read and pronounce the number on their paper. (While the second half is written out, they will need to know how to say the first number in Spanish since only the digit is on their paper.)
3. Have students stand up until they have read their paper. They sit down after their turn. This makes it easier to tell who has not gone yet, and who might need a gentle reminder.
4. Highlight the skills they will need to accomplish this: listening for their number, pronouncing their lines clearly and loudly, and the importance of repeating the number in Spanish rather than in English if someone needs a little nudge. (This is to prevent students shouting out "Seventeen! That means seventeen!" in frustration with a classmate who has forgotten their number, or who is just in outer space.)
5. Time how long the class takes to complete the sequence. Emphasize good teamwork and how it affects the ability to complete this task as a group. Let them know that they will be able to reduce their time with practice. Often they will want to try again right away. Keep track of their time and save it for the next practice opportunity. 

Notes:
Like Pesca, this is a good springboard for conversations using tener. This vocabulary practice format is easiest to model with something consecutive like numbers, but can be used with a variety of vocabulary words, languages, and subjects. (I made this set for practicing animals and colors in English with my students in Spain. I've seen it used with fractions, decimals, and more.)

I hope these can be helpful! Any other great ideas for number review?