Sponge Activities

I received an email from "Inside the School," with a list of Sponge Activities. I had never heard the phrase before, but I like the idea. A sponge activity is one that you can use if there is 10-15 minutes of class left for which you have nothing planned. They can also be used as emergency sub plans.

These are the sponge activities I read in the email. Below I will include some activities that I would consider my own sponge activities.


From "Emergency Sponge Activities" by Diane Trim (email from Inside the School, Dec. 14, 2009):

1. Pass the chicken. Write "Give me five" on the board. Create a list of categories (i.e. Spanish-speaking countries, South American countries, names of foods, names of classes, etc.). Start with one student, and give her a rubber chicken (or another goofy item). She must name five things in a category before the chicken is passed all the way around the classroom and arrives to her. This could be a good review activity for a test or a good warm up activity.


2. Mad libs. This would be great in Spanish because you can review parts of speech to create a fun paragraph. It's a fun alternative to filling in the blank exercises.


3. Would you rather? In other classes, you would have to cater the questions to the particular discipline. For example in a math class room you could ask, "Would you rather factor or divide?" But what is great about Spanish, is that you can talk about what ever you want, as long as it's in Spanish. You could also use this as a way to review vocabulary.


Some examples:
¿Te gustaría comer las zanahorias o el pan?
¿Te gustaría beber el jugo o la leche?
¿Te gustaría leer o correr?


4. Pipe cleaners. Give students a vocabulary word that you are working on, and they have to sculpt it with a pipe cleaner. I have done this with numbers before, but never with vocabulary words.

5. Speech bubbles. Show students a comic strip or a picture, and they have to create speech bubbles for each person. I do this a lot as part of lessons, but it would be a good sponge activity or sub plan. For a sub plan, you could have them create speech bubbles and then make another comic strip of picture to show what will happen next. It would be a go-to sub plan to keep in a folder at school.

6. "Tweet. Twitter limits users to 140 characters – letters, spaces, and punctuation – per tweet. Students tweet, adults tweet, and businesspersons tweet. But what would Shakespeare tweet? How about Abraham Lincoln? Newton? Ask students to tweet in character. Example from http://www.historicaltweets.com/: Accomplishments just earned me title "Alexander the Good." Must work harder. -11:01 AM August 14, 344 BC from gritter."

In Spanish, you could use any historical figure or you could have them do a regular tweet about their day.

7. "Art/photos. Artists and photographers show us their view of history through their brushes and lenses. Select a piece of art or photography and display it for the class. What's happening in the picture? What time period is it from? Why would the artist or photographer select this scene? What comment is the artist or photographer making on society? Do you like the picture? Why/why not?"

This sponge activity could work for all levels. It could be as simple as naming all the colors or describing all the people to more sophisticated sentences like expressing desires or wishes.

My sponge activities:

1. El crucigrama- I divide students into two teams, and I give them a category like "la comida" or "los deportes." The first person on the team has to write the category word, and then the rest of the team has to write words off that word (like a word puzzle) that fit the category. It's a great activity for getting kids out of their seats and moving.

2. Board races-Kids love board races, and it's another way to get them moving. You could do board races with vocabulary (like with the crucigramas above), but I usually do them with verb forms.

3. High school kids love to talk about themselves, so if we have about 5 minutes left over on a Thursday or Friday I ask them what their plans are for the weekend. I enjoy it, too, because I learn about what is going on in their worlds.

4. YouTube Videos. I have a small collection of fun YouTube videos that are in Spanish that students enjoy. The favorites are the Spanish Love songs and the Justin Timberlake songs make into song about Spanish grammar (see "Reflex your verby" and "Conjugations Back". See the sidebar of this blog for videos.

5. ¿Dónde está Dora? I have a small Dora the Explorer doll in my classroom. Students put Dora somewhere in the classroom while another student is outside of the classroom. The student comes back into the classroom, and the class has to give her clues as to where Dora is.

6. Papa Caliente. This is very similar to Pass the Chicken. I give students a category, and each student needs to name one vocabulary word that would fit in that category while passing around a "hot potato" (I use a ball). I put the timer on for 1-2 minutes depending on what level, and the student who has the ball last loses. You could mix it up by having one student do an action, and the other student says what the action is.

7. Flashcards. Oldie but a goodie. Our textbook has flashcards on their website, and I pull those up on the SMARTBoard. I always have a set of number flashcards laying around that I can use, too. Even Spanish 3-4 could stand to review numbers.

8. Brands. When you are learning food vocabulary or toiletries, you can play this game. Divide the class into two teams. Tell them a category (i.e. deoderant, cereal, shampoo), and they have to think of as many brands as possible. You can choose how to have them tell you the brands. It could be a board race, they could just write it on a piece of paper or mini white board or you could have them say one by one, taking turns and the team that can't think of a brand loses.

**I know I have many, many more up my sleeve, and I will continue to add on to this list.**