Inside: Exploratory Spanish for Middle School plans. What to do with one-quarter of novice Spanish class. Spanish exploratory curriculum for World languages exploratory Spanish courses.
Author: Allison Wienhold
Originally posted on 1.29.18 & most recently updated 12.15.25
Exploratory Spanish Classes
I have always been a #deptof1. This meant the only World Language teacher in my district. I taught all levels of high school level Spanish 1-4.
In addition, for three years I also had the chance to teach Exploratory Spanish to 7th and 8th grades. These were true novice Spanish students who had 0 previous Spanish. My Spanish Explore class had Spanish for one nine-week quarter. This rotated over the year with other specials such as industrial technology, art, business, etc.
This post is focused on a short term middle school Spanish class. If you have students all year, Heritage students or another situation, please see my new Spanish Curriculum for Middle School for an even more comprehensive post.
What is Exploratory Spanish?
Exploratory Spanish was a short, introduction to World Languages for every middle school student without choice.
The primary objectives of my Spanish program was a proficiency-oriented curriculum using the target language using comprehensible input. For me this meant a focus on communication skills with culture-filled activities in the second language. I did not want a bunch of disjointed different activities focusing on basics like numbers or the alphabet. But rather, understanding of the foundations of the Spanish language. Plus joy in the early days of their Spanish learning journeys.
Exploratory Spanish was a unique opportunity to reach ALL junior high students with Spanish in my rural public school. This included those who had no desire to take Spanish in the future. Plus students with 504 plans and IEPs who are pulled out for many general education classes. It was my personal goal to hook every student by showing them Spanish is fun and to make them feel successful.
In my first year I posted 6 Week Plans for Exploratory Spanish, while we were on trimesters. While I still use some of what I did then, after having eight sections of absolute beginner Spanish, I have refined my exploratory plans even more.
When I started teaching Spanish explore in 2016 a complete curriculum or exploratory Spanish curriculum that fit my needs did not exist. So I created my own Spanish enrichment program. My goal was to help students be successful in high school Spanish. It’s not about a packet of exploratory Spanish class worksheets but more hands-on activities and movement.
Middle School Exploratory Spanish – class starters
To start class each day, exploratory followed my daily Para Empezar class starters. Since I was teaching Spanish 1-4 in the same day, I usually just went along with what other classes were doing to make it easier on myself. But, if you are just teaching middle school all day, I would suggest my most basic Exploratory Para Empezar format. If you happen to have your middle school students all year, you might want my year of música miércoles & baile viernes bundle for music to use every week all year.
>> Or best yet NEW Spanish bell ringers Para Empezar for Middle School for a year (Or Year of Middle School Spanish Bell Ringers fro my website store).
Or you can get the middle school class starters individually to customize to your situation.
- Weekend Chat Novice Spanish Middle School
- Spanish Speaking Countries Videos – in English & Spanglish
- Middle School Música miércoles
- Middle School Jaja jueves Spanish Jokes
- Middle School baile viernes
Depending on the time of year they vote in the Hispanic Heritage Month Bracket or March Madness Bracket too with the other classes. I would suggest the following most appropriate brackets to use with middle school.
>>> Young Hispanic Heritage – 1 song from each Spanish-speaking country.
>>> NEW 2025 Young March Music Bracket
We also do daily brain break, since middle schoolers right after lunch need to MOVE.
Middle School Exploratory Spanish – lesson plans
Depending on the school calendar, some of the little units were in a different order each time. I like to have a full week of school for Martina Bex Somos resources, while I find Sr. Wooly units work well on strange weeks with early outs or fewer days due to the flexibility. (I used Sr. Wooly Pro & you can see what I do with it here). When I taught exploratory the vamos curriculum & vamos units did not yet exist. I prefer the base material is on communication for the optimal experience.
**I have now changed what I would personally do if I taught a quarter again. This updated post reflects my ideal plan for 2026.
Here is my ideal plan for a quarter of IN PERSON Exploratory Spanish. (45-50 minute class every day for 9 weeks)
Day 1 – Name Game Speedball
On day 1, students learn to introduce themselves, while I secretly learn all names on the first day of class. Get this freebie below.
Super 7 Spanish Present Unit using Super 7 Bundle in my shop or on TPT (4 weeks)
The huge focus for Exploratory is the Super 7 Verbs (es, tiene, le gusta, hay, está, va a, quiere)
- >> Special Person Interviews with the original Super 7 unit
- > Song & joke expansion with the digital Super 7 unit (or sub plans or digital plans for absent students)
- >> Review activities that can be used at the end of the unit, or sprinkled in over the quarter to spiral review
- >Super 7 Find Someone Who
- >Super 7 Question Cards
- >Super 7 Digital Review Slides (great sub plan any time during the quarter!)
- Te gusta practice
- Tienes practice
When I originally did this unit with just the original Super 7 unit, it typically took me about 2 weeks. But, now with the expansion of the activities in the digital Super 7 unit and supplemental resource, I would make the unit 4 weeks if I did it right now.
I would take two days on each verb, instead of just one. On the first day we would do the interview, and the second would be all of the expansion of song introduction, reading comprehension with jokes, free writing, plus Quizlet & Blooket vocabulary review.
Plus, I would add in all of the review activities as well. We could do question cards daily as a fast finisher to practice the verbs used that week, and then the Find Someone Who to review for assessment. Over the course of this unit the unit materials differentiate to the ability levels & comprehension levels of the wide range of Spanish.
Super 7 Vocab but in a new way
If you wanted to break up the Super 7 unit, here are a couple Sr. Wooly songs that you could use as supplemental, or as their own mini song unit for a week.
- >Sr. Wooly – No lo tengo (school vocab)
- >Sr. Wooly – Es una ganga (basic shopping) great for a shorter week
- >Sr. Wooly – Guapo (descriptions)
Sweet 16 Unit using Sweet 16 Bundle
If your class is ready for it, and you are not expanding with units from others, after the Super 7 I would do the Sweet 16 Unit in a very similar way. It focuses on the following verbs (all those not yet found in the Super 7 above) le da, le dice, hace, puede, pone, sabe, sale, trae, ve, oye, viene.>> Special Person Interviews with the original Sweet unit>> Song & joke expansion with the digital Sweet 16 unit (or sub plans or digital plans for absent students)>> Review activities that can be used at the end of the unit >Sweet 16 Find Someone Who
Additional Units from others you could use instead of going on to the Sweet 16
>SOMOS Unit 1 (dice, es)>SOMOS Unit 2 (camina, corre, ve)>Gusta & What do you like more? Game (le gusta, me gusta) great for a shorter week
> Mini individual units about different cultures
Film to end the quarter or as a break
Pick any movie from my list 20 Appropriate movies for Spanish class. This film could be stretched to a one week mini unit if you want or just used quickly for a few days.
El libro de vida film is what I personally used when I taught exploratory on the dedicated finals days since junior high did not have to take one.
What about if you have a 2nd quarter or Exploratory?
My Spring group of 8th graders was different since they did all of the above the year before in my exploratory Spanish class. The 8th graders basically completed what my Spanish 1 did first quarter that year. (Special Person Interviews with Super 7 Unit with Find Someone Who, SOMOS Unit 5 & El Capibara con botas with Ecuador reading & Stations). It was the earliest I have ever tried a novel, but it actually went well considering (some of) my Spanish 1 said it was too easy!
If you do not have funds for a novels, I would focus a lot on the Sweet 16 using Sweet 16 Bundle.
Even if you went through it before, you can always use the unit again with new students, since the special person interviews will always be different.
If you know you want to use many of the resources above, plus have a variety of mini cultural activities as well. I would highly suggest my Middle School Spanish Mega Bundle in my store or the same Mega Bundle on TPT.
Do you teach exploratory Spanish? What do you do?
