Carnaval Activities for the Spanish Classroom – Culture & Language

Get these 3 FREE Carnaval Activities to use with your students in the Spanish classroom. They are fun, interactive cultural lessons embedded with rich vocabulary and grammar concepts that are easy to implement.

Did you know that Carnaval and Semana Santa are connected holidays? If you’re like me, you think of Carnaval as a Brazilian or New Orleans holiday. We’ve all heard of how Semana Santa is one of the largest cultural celebrations throughout Latin America and Spain. These countries come alive with deeply rooted religious traditions and celebrations and are ripe opportunities to teach about culture in the classroom. The trick is being able to find relevant and authentic cultural information that you can easily integrate into your lessons.

As Spanish educators, I think you and I agree that we should not take culture out of learning a language. Culture is intertwined with the language and many rich insights can be gleaned from the glimpses of culture we bring into the classroom. Our students need to be exposed to culture while learning a language since they will be interacting with various cultures in their future careers.

However, I, just like you maybe, sometimes omit that “cultural lesson” due to time and curriculum limitations. So, that’s why I’m sharing these easy to implement lessons with you!

Here are 3 FREE CARNAVAL activities for the Spanish classroom that you can download today and use to introduce Carnaval in your classes. They come with a framework to easily implement them and your students will love them! 

Actividad 1: Carnaval Vocabulary Activity

Get this free CARNAVAL VOCAB activity today! It is full of high-frequency vocabulary, images of Carnaval to show to your students, 3 age appropriate, relevant videos that explain Carnaval and a vocabulary activity.

Actividad 2: Las Máscaras de Carnaval Activity

Get this free Las Máscaras de Carnaval activity!  This activity that explains the origins and symbolism of the máscaras and includes mask making templates for your students

Actividad 3: Celia Cruz Music & Grammar Activity

Get this free activity blending Carnaval Music & Grammar! This lesson uses a famous Carnaval song (by Celia Cruz), blended with a grammar topic and our Carnaval high frequency grammar. I even include my lesson plan so you can see just how I implement it. ENJOY!

The above activities are examples of the various engaging lessons in the complete Semana Santa / Carnaval Cultural Unit available here

It can be fun, relatively easy and meaningful to integrate cultural lessons into classes.