Creating a board game: Mi ciudad/Mi barrio

As part of an MYP2 Spanish project based learning unit, students completed a mini-project in which they designed and created a board game for the class to play. Using simple materials such as sticky notes, clips, paper, and magnets, students built a city map that served as the game board.

The main objective of the project was to encourage meaningful interaction and spoken production in Spanish, while reinforcing the use of hay, ser and estar, as well as adjectives.

During the activity, each student presented their own city to the class and acted as the creator of the game. The creator asked the first player to locate a specific place on the map, using vocabulary related to the city and descriptive language. Once the place was identified, the creator asked questions about the size, color, or shape of the building, prompting the player to respond orally. The player then moved a small character on the map using a magnet to reach the correct location. In addition to developing linguistic skills, the project also integrated art and design skills. Students carefully designed their city maps using basic perspective, spatial organization, and visual clarity to help players navigate the board.

Attention was given to layout, scale, and the visual representation of buildings and streets, allowing students to express creativity while making their games functional and engaging.

Throughout the project, students actively spoke, interacted, and negotiated meaning in Spanish, demonstrating both creativity and growing confidence in their language use.