El Imperfecto del Subjuntivo

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly students in Spanish IV learn new conjugations.  I mean, in comparison to the introduction of conjugation in Spanish I and the present tense and, heaven help us, the crucible that is the preterite in Spanish II, the other tenses just seem to come easier.  Even when I stood up yesterday and announced that there was (gasp!) another subjunctive tense and we would be learning it, no one batted an eye.

It helps that the imperfect subjunctive technically has no irregular verbs and that students already know when to use the subjunctive by the time it rolls around.

What didn't help was that there were no fun activities to be found online.  I wanted puzzles, pictures, skits, you know . . . but I guess that producers of educational materials figure if you've made it this far into Spanish then you must be mature.  That is mostly true, but it does not mean that we don't want to have fun.

I didn't have time today to come up with a rip-roaring, hooting-tooting board game - sadly.  But I did have enough time to create a crossword puzzle.  You can click here to download it or click on the image above.  This particular crossword focuses on when to use the present subjunctive and when to use the imperfect subjunctive.  My students literally just learned the tense yesterday and were ready for this today, so you can plan to do it very shortly after you introduce the tense.  I included all the trouble verbs: poder/poner, decir/dar, ir/ver, hacer, querer, etc.  You know, the usual suspects.

Obviously, a topic this advanced is going to be for a Spanish IV or V class or an especially gifted Spanish III group.  You might want to throw it in as a quick grammar review for AP, though I admit that it has nothing to do with any of the AP Themes.

Oh!  I made an answer key too.  Click here for a copy of the answers.  

I hope yours is a great day, amigos!

Hasta Pronto,

--AnneK