Teaching High School Spanish in Homeschool: BJU Press Spanish 1 & 2, games, books, and lesson plans

Last year, my ninth grader completed Spanish 1 with Bob Jones University Press Spanish 1, 3rd edition. We managed to successfully complete the curriculum and my daughter finished the year with an A. I went ahead a purchased Spanish 2 for her for this year, along with a few extras.

The Spanish 1 and Spanish 2 curriculum sets come complete with student text and student activities workbook, along with chapter exams, Teacher’s manual, and keys for everything. The audio portion of the curriculum is located online for free. We found the speakers to go a little fast sometimes, and had to pause and rewind on quite a few assignments. There were also times that words were used in readings that were not previously introduced as vocabulary. With Google’s and a Spanish dictionary’s help, we figured it out. If I was a native speaker, this probably would not have been an issue. As someone who took Spanish as a required elective in high school and college, I found it a little frustrating. However, I did appreciate the fact that it exposed her to how to make inferences to possible meanings based on context before looking it up. It was not something that will deter us from using BJU Press again this year for Spanish 2.

I did add a few extras this year though to review vocabulary and verb conjugation from last year. My middle child is starting Spanish 1 this year, so we will be able to play these games together, as instruction for her and review for the tenth grader. Other than the Loteria game I found at our grocery store, the other items are from TeachersPayTeachers.com. The ones that were free at the time of writing this post are noted. Here are a few resources I found to add to our curriculum:

Spanish Loteria (Bingo) at our local grocery store

Pesca (Go Fish) game for Spanish greetings, farewells, introductions, etc. (free at the time of writing this)

“Yo tengo, que tiene…” (I have, who has…) games for classroom items and telling time (both free at time of writing)

Spanish time matching cards (also free at time of writing)

El Toro and Cucharas games for present tense verbs, including regular, irregular and stem-change verbs

No prep game packs for present tense regular and irregular verbs– I found it easiest to print the whole pack of games and put them into a file folder.

Interactive flap book of verbs:

Present tense

Preterite tense

Imperfect tense

We were also given a few Spanish books by another homeschool family. To practice figuring out unknown words in context before looking them up, I will be adding these to our weekly plans. For Spanish 1, I will add “Pobre Ana” later in the year. For Spanish 2, I will use the other four, one per quarter, in the order that they are labeled in the photo. These and other books can be found on the publisher’s site, TPRSbooks.com

I will not be using the lesson plans provided in the teacher’s manuals. Those plans are for five days a week for 36 weeks. No thanks. This leaves no time for co-op days, field trips, etc. Instead, I condensed the lessons into four days over a period of 30-33 weeks for Spanish 1 and Spanish 2. These plans are only for the BJU Press books and do not include the extras shown above:

Spanish 1 Plans

Spanish 2 Plans

I am also having my kids learn more about Spanish speaking countries and geography that just what is presented in the textbook. I found this bundle on TPT: Research Spanish Speaking Countries and States of Mexico. My kid in Spanish 1 will research countries in North and Central America. My kid in Spanish 2 will research South American countries.

In addition to the base curriculum, added novels, and country research, I will be trying to add in an artist study at the end of the year for Diego Rivera. Last year, we happened to go on a field trip to the San Antonio Botanical Gardens for a special display on Frida Kahlo. We read a short biography ahead of time, and my daughter wrote a report about Frida’s life after the field trip. I hope to do something similar this year, and perhaps take additional field trips to other cultural events.

Including all of these activities and research in addition to the base curriculum, I transcript the classes as honors classes for high school.

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