World LanguageModern foreign languagesElementaryPrimary
How to teach days of the week in Spanish
The days of the week in Spanish run from lunes to domingo, are written in lowercase, and take el or los depending on whether something happens once or every week. This page covers all three, with a free activity where students fill in a weekly planner and talk about their own week with Sparky.
Jemel Fanfan | Founding Member at Flint
"I’ve created activities that allow students to move at their own pace. This personalization enables them to take ownership of their learning and work through material independently, reinforcing their understanding and building confidence."
Esther Lite Martinez, Spanish Teacher at Léman Manhattan Preparatory SchoolWhy this matters
A young student can recite lunes, martes, miércoles and still write "el Martes" in a sentence, because English capitalizes Tuesday. The same student says "el sábado" for soccer practice that happens every Saturday, since English uses "on" for both. On a worksheet of blanks, neither mistake shows until the teacher grades the stack.
The days of the week in Spanish
A Spanish week runs from Monday to Sunday. The Real Academia Española (RAE) dictionary calls lunes "primer día de la semana", the first day of the week, and defines a week as seven days "del lunes al domingo" (RAE dictionary).
- lunes: Monday
- martes: Tuesday
- miércoles: Wednesday
- jueves: Thursday
- viernes: Friday
- sábado: Saturday
- domingo: Sunday
The RAE says the days "no deben escribirse con mayúscula inicial", so they start with a lowercase letter unless they open a sentence. Lunes to viernes stay the same in the plural, while sábado and domingo add an s: los sábados, los domingos (RAE, Diccionario panhispánico de dudas). The months in Spanish follow the same lowercase rule: enero, febrero, marzo, abril, mayo, junio, julio, agosto, septiembre, octubre, noviembre, diciembre (RAE).
Spanish uses el or los where English uses "on" (University of Texas at Austin, Spanish department materials). El sábado means on one Saturday: El sábado viene mi abuela, my grandma is coming on Saturday. Los martes means every Tuesday: Los martes juego al fútbol, I play soccer on Tuesdays.
In the Flint activity, each student fills in a weekly planner that Sparky made, from lunes to domingo, with their own week. Then they answer Sparky's questions in Spanish. A worksheet can't read a student's sentence and point them back to their own planner to find the mistake.
Sparky gets Eli to fix his own capital letter and pick el or los
Eli ends up writing the days in lowercase and choosing el for his grandma's one visit and los for his weekly soccer practice. Every student gets the same planner and questions, and Sparky's replies depend on each student's own week and sentences.
Eli
Eli
Sparky
Eli
oh its a little m in the planner. yo juego futbol el martesSparky
Eli
column C says cada semana so its los. yo juego futbol los martes y los juevesSparky
Eli
mi abuela viene los sabadosSparky
Eli
it says una vez. so mi abuela viene el sabado because its just this weekUnderstanding check
Fixed his capital letters, then chose el or los from his own planner
Eli is an example student, and Sparky's replies are shortened.
What Flint did for Eli
- Sparky made the planner spreadsheet with the days in lowercase from lunes, and Eli filled it in with his soccer practice and his grandma's visit.
- When Eli wrote "el Martes", Sparky asked how martes was written in column A of his planner instead of fixing the letter.
- When Eli wrote "los sabados" for one visit, Sparky sent him to column C, and Eli chose el sábado himself before getting a harder question.
A teacher can't do this by hand for 30 students, and Sparky does it in every student's chat.
The activity page shows who still writes el Lunes
While the class works, Needs attention shows the teacher which student is stuck and on which message. After three or more students submit, activity analytics lists what the class did well, where students went wrong, and a follow-up to practice next.
Example activity page
After a 4th grade Spanish class plans its week
The school and students are made up for this page.
Set up the activity for free
Open the days of the week activity in Flint's public library, select Use activity to copy it into a free Flint account, and assign it to a class. The planner spreadsheet comes with Sparky's first message, and each student fills in their own copy in the chat before answering Sparky's questions. Sparky's primary language is set to Spanish with English allowed, so students get English support while they write in Spanish.
For more Spanish and French activities, see Flint for world language.
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