Spanish New Year’s Activities: A Collection for the Classroom

Inside: Spanish New Year’s activities, and links.  

Coming back to school after the winter break can be rough. Create a lesson or two around New Year’s traditions, and you can kick off the new semester with fun activities centered on Latino culture.  

As explored in my New Year’s in Spanish post, there are a ton of good-luck rituals in the Hispanic world. From wearing the right underwear to stuffing down 12 grapes a midnight, there’s a little bit of everything! And there are plenty of interesting traditions to capture your students’ attention.  

Or maybe consider a real-world task like making resolutions and/or wishes. There are plenty of #authres to make these sorts of activities even more meaningful.  

Below, I’ve gathered all kinds of resources, so there should be something for everyone. Enjoy!

SPANISH NEW YEAR’S ACTIVITIES

LESSON IDEAS

• Prepare a list of famous characters/people/celebrities. Then, write up one or more resolutions for each person. Show the list of people to the class, and read the resolutions out loud, while the students try to guess whose it is.

• Use this printable to make goals for the coming year. This would be a great way to kick off the new semester with a refresh of tons of verbs!

• Use this AMAZING resource from Maris Hawkins to read “horoscopes” or predictions about the new year, according to birthdays. As she says in her post, it’s a really nice way to focus on who your students are, instead of asking about activities over break.
   
• Make 12 wishes for the New Year, and write each one in a grape. (Following the tradition of eating 12 grapes at midnight, and making a wish for each one eaten.) This is an output-heavy activity, so it might be best to brainstorm and give options for the students to choose from, or use for a more advanced class and then discuss.

• For younger students, prepare “grapes” with a wish for the New Year written down. After talking about each wish, have the students pick just one wish for the next year. Then vote for favorites and do a graph to see what the most popular wish is!

• Research superstitions to bring good luck on New Year’s, and compare them between countries/cultures.

• Have students choose one word for the New Year, as explained here.
  
• Make New Year’s resolutions! Perhaps begin with a funny story about someone who has high hopes for the new year and sets intense goals, and then what actually happens Jan 1. OR go the inspirational route about someone who truly does turn over a new leaf (the Grinch, maybe). Then at the end of the story, students come up with their own resolutions.

• Talk about the traditions behind Los Reyes Magos. I’ve got some free printable cartas, and a huge blog post packed with videos and free resources! 

• Propósitos para el Año Nuevo from Spanish Plans. This is perfect if you are doing a resolutions writing activity!

• Metas para el año nuevo from La Clase de Señora Dufault. Use this cute download if you are doing resolutions with younger students. 

• Teach the song Vivir mi vida to prep for writing resolutions (lots of voy a… reps), with this free activity sheet.

Spanish SONGS for New Year’s

VIDEOS: COSTUMBRES PARA EL AÑO NUEVO

LOS REYES MAGOS