Duolingo

This is an extremely well produced app. Students can select Spanish or French and then they compete for mastery of each level. Levels are progressively harder. The possibility exists for a student to master a level without competing- effectively allowing them to "test out" of levels and move directly to challenging ones. It is set up as a game and students try to keep their hearts. Their progress is recorded and available to review. It is a very individual activity so I assign when students have a few minutes of down time at the end of a test or other activity. Students can toggle the language themselves so keep an eye out- I had one student who decided she'd rather do it in French, which is great but not in Spanish class. ;)

Learning Games

These apps are all by the same developer and have a similar look and feel.  They are listed as 99 cents each but you can get all of them for $1.99.  They are really basic, testing the sounds of the animals, for instance, but they are pretty intuitive and don't require a lot of knowledge of Spanish to use.  I like to have students complete these when they have a few minutes free while they are waiting for the class to finish a test or if they come early...  My favorite part is that each app has an interactive alphabet that you click on the letters and it gives you the sounds in Spanish, said by a native speaker (Castillian accent)-great for extra practice at the beginning of the year!

Ahorcado is a fun game for students to test their vocab knowledge.  Students select from word categories and can get hints.  The best part about this app is that if you pick the 2 player option, the players can choose their own words and it sets them up in a game of hangman! This app is free. 

El Tiempo Hora a Hora

 El Tiempo hora a hora by tutiempo.net

  Not only can you get real, current weather conditions from around the world, but it is only in Spanish...so your clever babies can't toggle it to English.  It forces them to interact in a real-world way while getting information.  And, on the subject of information, students can see a visual representation of the weather, along with the temp in Celsius and a couple phrases about the conditions.  This has been good for my level one students because they can use those as scaffolding when I ask them questions like, ¿Qué tiempo hace hoy en Madrid?   Click on Astro, and you can then ask questions about the time of the sunrise and sunset. Click on hora a hora and ask about weather terms and times of the day. Click on the 15 días to ask about weather and days of the week. The date is also abbreviated in Day/Month/Year.