Inside: Take your Spanish class outside, get some fresh air and have some fun while learning. End of the year ideas to save your sanity in Spanish class including Outdoor Classroom Day or Aprendiendo al Aire Libre.
originally posted 5.16.19 by Allison Wienhold – most recently updated 4.2.25
Take your Spanish class outside
I do not know about other parts of the country and world, but Spring in the Midwest is literally a breath of fresh air. After six months of bone-chilling cold, wind, and snow, in Iowa, we have earned some warm weather.
Personally sunshine and being outside gives me life. So any excuse to be outside in May and June is fine by me.
Normally all it takes in the afternoon is a student asking if we can go outside and I am easily convinced. It is too bad for the morning classes since it often starts out pretty chilly. But, by the afternoon it is perfect for outside time.
12 Outdoor Activities for Spanish Class
- Outdoor Classroom Day
- Read Outside
- Find Someone Who Outside
- Chalk the Walk
- Spanish Class Scavenger Hunt
- Cardboard Gloves
- Outside Brain Breaks
- Walk and Talk Outside
- Campus Clean Up
- Outside Speedball
- 1,2,3 Salta!
- Question Cards Around Outside
Read more below to learn about all of these outdoor activities for Spanish class.
Outdoor Classroom Day
My classes do know that going outside for Spanish is still time for learning and not just a free for all. For spontaneous and randomly beautiful days, it might be as easy as bringing activities outside on clipboards to sit on the sidewalk or grass and work.
Or you can have a planned day and celebrate Outdoor Classroom Day on May 8, 2025. Since 2012 there has been a movement to have all classes outside for a day. You can learn more on their website, with resources available in Spanish & other languages.
Here are ideas that you can use to celebrate this day, or anytime you want to plan or spontaneously just go outside for class.
Read Outside
This can be as easy as taking your free reading books to read in the sunshine. With a class novel, I like to have scrap paper by the door and instruct students to grab scrap paper, a clipboard, and their novel, read a chapter, and do one of the following on the fly:
- Write a 10 question True/false quiz (& then give this quiz out loud to 3 friends)
- Come up with 5 comprehension question quiz in Spanish (& then work with a partner to discuss)
- Free write to retell the chapter
- Smashdoodle or storyboard to visually show comprehension
See this post for more ideas for reading outside, with examples from the novel Tumba.
Find Someone Who Outside
Grab a clipboard or notebook, a pencil, and your paper Find Someone Who.
I have tons ready for you to review before the end-of-the-year assessments.
- Present Super 7
- Imperfect Tense Spanish
- Preterite Tense Review
- Conditional Tense Spanish
- Simple Future Tense
Or get this Find Someone Who you are looking for an engaging activity for the last day of Spanish class. Update, you now have the option to get the same last day find someone who in my website store as well.
Chalk the Walk
Have students write or draw to retell something in Spanish. Or write questions in Spanish for students to walk and talk about. this would be great as a final review. Use Spanish Question Cards to write the questions, or just post them around.
Spanish Class Scavenger Hunt
Have clues in the target language around the school and outside. I would recommend letting admin and other teachers know that students are out and about and you do need to set the expectations of behavior expected outside of the room. For example, we did this Internado Muffin Hunt to review El Internado and get kids out and about. The students loved it!
Cardboard Gloves
If you are teaching a unit on sports or the book Felipe Alou, making cardboard gloves and going outside to use them is perfect for right now. Check out this blog post to learn more about making Cardboard gloves.
Outside Brain Breaks
If you can not take your classes outside for the whole period, take them outside for a brain break. Have a race when talking about comparatives or do a couple of yoga or dance moves outside. There are more brain break ideas here.
Walk and Talk Outside
Basically, just walk around the school and talk in the target language! Learn more about a WalkTalk from Sarah Breckley here. Or if you need more structure post big Question Cards outside around the school.
Campus Clean Up
Talk about the environment in your classes and then spend a day with gloves and garbage bags walking around school and cleaning up. This would be perfect around Earth Day. While you are cleaning you can chat in the target language as well.
Outside Speedball
Speedball is for more than just the 1st day of school! Play Speedball outside to practice questions. You can play in multiple small groups to get students talking more often.
If you want to use this activity inside, here are free speedball slides that explain the actiivity.
1,2,3 Salta! Quick Outside Movement Game
A newer addition to this list is 1, 2, 3, ¡SALTA!. All you need is a list of True & False statements in the target language about a text your students are familiar with. It is a quick review game you can also play outside.
Students get in a giant line. One side is designated as true & the other as false. The teacher reads a statement in Spanish, then says 1, 2, 3, ¡SALTA! Students jump to the correct side.
Learn more about how to play this game in the blog post 1, 2, 3, ¡SALTA! (1,2,3 Jump!)
Question Cards Around Outside
Question Cards are very versatile. Once you have some printed, you can break them out to mix things up all of the time. If you need to work on asking and answering questions for any topic, try question cards posted outside around the school.
Tape up the questions around outside. Then have students move around in pairs taking turns asking and answering. Or you can have the option of writing down answers in a notebook individually. On a nice day start a class for Weekend Chat with question cards outside.
If you want ready-to-go question cards, check out my Spanish Conversation Cards Bundle.
Need more ideas? Check out these posts & Take your Spanish class outside
- Fun Spanish Classroom Games to Increase Engagement
- Get Your Spanish Class Moving
- End of the year ideas for Spanish class
- End of the year Spanish – Running out of Time
- Final Assessments for Spanish class
- Asian Pacific Heritage Month Asian-Latinx Resources for May
