Learning how to express your feelings is essential in order to connect with a language. It is easy for students to fall into the rut of always answering, “I’m good. (Yo estoy bien,)” but what are other emotions they can express?

Classroom Game: ¿Cómo Estás?
The Calico Spanish Flashcards come with 9 phrases for expressing emotions. Each flashcard includes a picture that accurately represents the feeling in question.

I like to play this game with my students during our 15-minute block in the gymnasium or outside where we have some space to move around, but you can also make it work in your regular classroom.

1. Lay the pile of emotion flash cards face down on the floor.
2. Put some distance between the class and the pile of cards.
3. Line up single file.
4. Together as a class, ask, “¿Cómo estás?”
5. The student at the front of the line runs to the pile and chooses the top card. He/she then has to act out the emotion.
6. The students in line guess which emotion is being acted out.
7. When the correct answer is guessed, the actor returns the card to the teacher and then runs back to the end of the line.
8. Repeat steps 4 through 7 until you have gone through the entire stack. Repeat as many times as you wish.

If you are up to it, you can make this more of a competitive game by having two teams and keeping score of which team guesses correctly. It’s a guarantee that students will shout doing it this way, but they will be shouting in Spanish!