Hispanic Heritage Month gives you a chance to help students explore history, culture, and contributions from Hispanic communities in the United States. But it can be tricky to find activities that feel meaningful, classroom-ready, and easy to fit into your existing daily lessons.
You can explore two kinds of Hispanic Heritage Month activities on Formative: Lighter, just-for-fun options and primary sources activities that bring historical perspectives into the classroom. You’ll also see how to build your own activity in Formative when you want something more specific.
Use these lower-stakes activities when you want to introduce Hispanic Heritage Month, build background knowledge, or add a short skills-based task without creating a full new lesson from scratch.
This activity is a good fit when younger students need a simple introduction to Hispanic Heritage Month. They’ll watch two short videos and learn who the month celebrates, when it began, and why it’s important to recognize the contributions of Hispanic communities.
Try it as a quick warm-up, morning meeting activity, or social studies connection. The format can help students build background knowledge through multiple modalities before they move on to more in-depth Hispanic Heritage Month lessons.
This activity is a good fit when students are ready to practice analyzing visual information. Perfect for middle school, it asks them to look closely at an infographic while learning the month’s history, the difference between the terms “Hispanic” and “Latino,” and the influence of Hispanic cultures on American culture.
Try it as a quick skills-based activity, discussion starter, or a bridge into deeper research.
This activity invites students to meet a well-known Hispanic sports star and leader, Roberto Clemente. Inside, they’ll watch a video about Clemente’s life and career, covering his baseball accomplishments, charity work, and impact beyond the field.
Use it as a short biographical activity, a conversation starter about legacy, or a way to connect Hispanic Heritage Month to students’ interests.
Primary sources can help students move beyond celebrating and into examining documents, voices, and decisions connected to Hispanic history. They also provide practice for asking important questions like “Who created this?” “What point of view does it show?” and “What context do we need to understand it?”
Each of these Hispanic Heritage Month activities includes an interactive Formative lesson from the shared Formative Library. You can assign the activity as-is or customize it by editing questions, adjusting settings, or adding more context before students begin.
With a Newsela Social Studies license, you can also explore interviews and documents that help students better understand how members of Hispanic communities have influenced American society.
You can also create your own Hispanic Heritage Month activities in Formative if you don’t see a ready-made template that matches your lesson goal. This works well when you have a specific multimodal resource, discussion prompt, or skill practice task in mind.
For example, you might build an activity around a short biography or a historical document, then use Formative and Luna AI to turn that material into something students can respond to directly.
Before you assign your Hispanic Heritage Month activity, preview it from the students’ point of view. Formative’s Preview option lets you view and interact with the activity as a student, which can help you check the display for both mobile and desktop devices.
This is especially helpful for activities that include readings, primary sources, and other multimodal resources. A quick preview can help you catch unclear directions, hard-to-view resources, or questions that need more context before students begin.
Hispanic Heritage Month activities can help students explore history, culture, and influence through more than one kind of classroom task. You might start with a quick video, move into infographic analysis, then use primary sources to help them examine historical perspectives more closely.
The Formative Library has free, pre-made activities developed by curriculum experts and educators. You can use these templates as-is or customize them to fit your instructional needs. Use the library’s filters to browse by subject and grade level, then edit questions, add context, or adjust settings before assigning.
You can also create your own activity when you need something more specific. Add multimedia, import content from Google, enhance a PDF or document, or use Luna AI to help build a student-ready activity.
Don’t have a Formative account yet? Sign up for free today to start creating activities for Hispanic Heritage Month and beyond.
