How does it work?
Wordle is a daily digital word puzzle game that took the world by storm a little over a year ago, and is now hosted by the New York Times.
Here’s how it works: The NYT chooses a 5 letter word each day, and you have 6 guesses to discover the correct word. You do this by making guesses of COMPLETE words; not letter by letter, like some other word guessing games.
If you guess a word that has a correct letter in the correct place, that letter will appear as GREEN in your guess.
If you have a correct letter in an incorrect space, it will appear as YELLOW.
You then make your next guess, again of a complete word, using the knowledge you’ve gleaned and the letters you have remaining.
Letters you’ve already guessed appear as grayed out on your keyboard.
You have a total of 6 chances to get the correct word.
How can I play Wordle with my Spanish Class?
There are ways to play this game virtually in your language classes (even setting your own words!) below, and I really enjoyed using these digital options.
If you’d like to play the daily SPANISH Wordle, share this link with your students!
Just like the English version, there is a new word every day and you have 6 guesses to get it right. Only actual Spanish words are accepted as guesses.
Alternatively, if you’d like to design your OWN digital Wordle to use with your students (in any length, not just 5 letters) try this platform! You can even set the language at the top of your screen if you’re making one in Spanish or another language other than English. Setting the language is important as the platform only accepts guesses that are real words in the designated language.
Play Spanish Wordle In Person, too!
While my students and I had fun with the various digital options, my students were much more engaged with an in person version I decided to try with them.
To set up, I drew 6 rows of 5 boxes on the board. You could absolutely create puzzles with 4 or 6 boxes, however many letters you’d like!
I called my students to discuss aloud as a class, and make official guesses together with me running the game at the front. If you have a rambunctious class, you can designate one person to submit the official guesses for the class, but my students typically did a great job communicating and working together as a team on this!
I would use my differently colored whiteboard markers to provide hints about correct letters and placement.
In this example, I used the color green to show my students they had a correct letter and correct placement.
I used pink to tell them they had a correct letter, but incorrect placement.
They solved this puzzle in five guesses! The correct word was PERRO. My students were always so proud when they solved the puzzle!
This worked really well at the very start or very end of class for me. It also worked as a brain break or as a “reset” in between activities during the day. Often, students would ask for it when they realized we were transitioning between activities for the day. Students also often offered to be the one running the game! “Profe, can I do a quick Wordle for the class?”
During one of my final observations last year, a student did just that! He raised his hand as I was prepping for our next activity which was going to take place in small groups, so I had some instructions to pass out before setting up. He offered to run a Wordle, and the entire class participated with him while I made my way around setting up. My department head, who was observing me, loved it! She was so proud of him, and so I was I 🙂
I love this because it makes our students THINK and REFLECT on the Spanish words they already know! I loved changing the puzzles to be 4 letter words one day, and six letters the next. This really challenged my students.
I noticed engagement in ALL levels of Spanish that I taught, from Spanish 1 CP to Spanish 3 Honors! Don’t rule out your Spanish 1 students 🙂 They’ve got this!! Keep reading for WORD IDEAS by level!
Spanish Wordle Ideas by Level
Here are a few ideas for 5 letter puzzles for various levels of Spanish learners. I’m sure you can think of a zillion more, but wanted to give you a few suggestions to get started!
Remember, it doesn’t always have to be 5 letters! You make the rules, Profe. Just make sure you set up your whiteboard boxes accordingly if you choose to do a 4 or 6 letter word, etc.
Spanish 1:
COLOR
FELIZ
ANTES
LIBRO
CLASE
LAPIZ
RUBIO
AMIGO
MADRE
VERDE
Spanish 2:
GATOS
GORRA
LECHE
AGUAS
PERRO
PRIMO
LINDO
CARRO
NUBES
NOCHE
Spanish 3:
CELOS
RATON
LUCES
BRAZO
NARIZ
LLENO
CASCO
PRISA
HABIA
VECES
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Have fun, Profe! I hope you’re leaving with some new ideas to try! Thanks for reading 🙂
One Comment
Cheers!