Fun resources for teaching La Comida Mexicana in Spanish class!
Looking for teaching ideas for the end of the year in Spanish class? Find activities you need to keep students engaged and learning until the last day of school. Here are some FUN Mexican food activities for Spanish class to learn about authentic foods.
These resources are not just for the end of the year - use them during Hispanic Heritage Month, to extend a food unit or a class celebration.
Caution: reading this post WILL make you hungry.
Mexican Food Activities for Spanish Class
Post vocabulary.
This is a bulletin board to drool over! Literally. Post a Mexican Food Word Wall for instant comprehensible input to expand students' vocabulary and give them new foods to discover! Includes images of 25 authentic Mexican and Tex-Mex dishes that will pique students' interest. Get them talking about likes, preferences, or ordering food in a restaurant. Add an intriguing title to your bulletin board like ¿Qué te gusta más? or ¿Cuál es tu comida favorita? There are so many great conversations about to take place!
Word walls are a fantastic way to support learners! Fill bulletin boards with meaningful vocabulary and images to make the language visible. Students will be drawn to it and curious about the new words. You'll love having vocabulary posted on your walls to refer to throughout the lesson. Students will develop a greater sense of independence and depend less on you for support!
Post in a prominent area of the classroom. Have students look at the words and make a list of cognates or words they already know (like tomates and guacamole) or make a list of new words. Choose several words (three to five a day) that are important for students to know. Students can illustrate the vocabulary, and write simple sentences or stories.
Check out these Spanish word walls for more ideas to fill your classroom with meaningful vocabulary!
Define vocabulary.
Need an engaging warm-up to begin your Mexican food unit? Introduce 30 authentic Mexican foods with this low-stress activity. There are so many new foods to discover! Most kids know about tacos, burritos, and quesadillas...but do they know about ceviche, chilaquiles, and chapulines? Great way to get students talking about likes & dislikes!
"Thank you for making this fun and useful resource! My students love word searches."
Use this La Comida Mexicana Word Search as a quick warm-up at the beginning of class. Set a timer for ten minutes and have students define as many foods as they can, and then find them. Pronounce the words. Briefly describe or define each food over the next few days. Ask students which foods they have tried. Do they have a favorite? Write sentences using the new vocabulary. "Me gusta carne asada." Or "No me gustan jalapeños." Ask "¿Qué te gustan más - tamales o enchiladas? Save the puzzle for later to use as a fast finisher activity and as a reference page throughout the unit.
Bingo
Build fluency and critical thinking skills with Lotería - a listening activity that uses sentences to describe 25 Mexican Foods! This is nacho average bingo game. Read clues in Spanish (or English) phrases that describe or define each food. Students listen to the clue and search for the image being described. All the work has been done for you. It's a great tie-in of food vocabulary to Cinco de Mayo, Hispanic Heritage Month, or your Spanish food unit.
"Students had so much fun playing this bingo game that they forgot they were learning!
It was fun, interactive, and we played about 10 times, so fun."
Sample clues:
"Es una fruta verde. Tiene una semilla grande." (aguacate)
"Es un plato Tex-Mex. Tiene una tortilla de harina, carne y frijoles. (burrito)
Includes a Google Slides version!
Play "I Spy."
Yo Veo is a fun way to introduce or review vocabulary. Students use a checklist to search for 17 Mexican foods. Work individually, in pairs, or project onto the whiteboard for a group activity. Use the images to promote conversation about likes and dislikes.
"Such a fun game to play! Students LOVED it."
Role Play
Bring in a menu from a Mexican restaurant and have students practice ordering food. Set up a table in front of the classroom with place settings and menus. Have a student act the part of a server and two others as customers. Practice greetings, ordering drinks, entrees, dessert, and asking for the bill.
End of Unit Finale
My favorite activity of all for ending the unit is a field trip to a Mexican restaurant! This involves extensive planning but in my opinion, is WORTH IT. (I need another blog post with all the details!) This is an event students will look forward to year after year. I was fortunate to have an amazing group of 8th-grade Spanish 1 students and a small authentic Mexican restaurant just minutes from our school. We had the entire restaurant to ourselves and additional servers present to handle our large group. Students sat in small groups of 4 or 6.
If you are lucky enough to have a Mexican restaurant nearby, stop and speak with the manager about bringing in your Spanish class. Ask the servers to speak only Spanish. Choose a time of day when the restaurant is not busy. Enlist parent volunteers and support staff to go with you. Have students practice their order in class before the day of the field trip. Collect money in advance to make paying the bill simple. Be sure to go over etiquette and how to behave in a restaurant. (Insert eye roll emoji here.) Good behavior means possibilities for future field trips.
If you can't arrange a field trip, have parents bring in authentic dishes -OR- plan for a food truck to come to your school. Again, all of these options will cost you time and energy but giving students the opportunity to order food in Spanish with native speakers is priceless.
Hope this helps you find meaningful cultural activities that you and your students LOVE!
Happy teaching.
Mexican Food Bundle
Find all of the activities posted above in a money-saving Mexican Food Bundle.
"My students loved using this resource to celebrate Latinx Heritage Month.
They enjoyed playing the game and learned the pronunciation for many new words."
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