Spanish numbers 1-100: activities for high school students

The Challenge

Almost all of my high school Spanish students enter Spanish 1 in 9th grade having had ZERO previous experience learning Spanish (or any language). That means they need to learn the basics of the language like Spanish numbers 1-100. My problem was A) textbook resources were woefully inadequate in that they didn’t provide enough practice and B) internet searches for inspiration yielded activities designed for small children, not 14 or 15 year olds.

After searching the internet for Spanish number activities for high school and finding nothing, I made my own.

Number Task Cards

They key was making Spanish numbers engaging. How do you do that? Puzzles. I created Spanish number task cards with numbers in a sequence, but one number was missing. The trick to keep students thinking in Spanish? The numbers are written in words, not numerals.

The other important thing was to make the activity attainable but slightly out of their comfort zone. I like to imagine students having to stand on their tip toes. The goal is within reach but it takes a little extra effort and stretching on their part. I hung these around my room and had students walk around and solve them before reviewing the answers as a class. I also made a hand on version for station use later in the year.

I’m not going to lie: my students grumbled at the start of this Spanish numbers activity because it wasn’t easy. It challenged them. You know what else? None of them gave up! It was one of the best activities I’ve done as far as student engagement, teamwork, and discussion. Why? Because humans loves puzzles! I even had study hall kids, not in my Spanish class, walking around trying to figure them out! What?!

I created a math edition as well. The student answer sheet is one of my favorite things I’ve made. This was a perfect challenge for my upper level Spanish students to review numbers!

Extension Ideas

Have students create their own cards/sequences of Spanish numbers after doing this activity! If you have a class of 24, each student could create their own or you could even pair them up and get 12 new sequences!

Are classes competitive? Create teams and have them compete to see which team can solve the problems quickest! OR use the student-created questions in a Quizlet Live, Gimkit, or Kahoot!

Another idea is to teach them some math terms (más, menos, por, dividido por) and have them create a math problems like my math edition.

These work great for reinforcing newly learned numbers or reviewing. If you teach multiple levels, use them with higher level classes as review!

Want to See More Cards or Get Your Own Ready-to-use Set?

Here are task cards for:

• Spanish Numbers from 1-10
• Spanish Numbers from 11-20
• Spanish Numbers from 20-60
• Spanish Numbers from 20-100

Here are the math editions:

• Spanish Numbers from 1-100
• Spanish Numbers from 100-1,000

How do you make the basic Spanish number activities fun and engaging for high school Spanish students? Share below!