KS2 · Spanish · Year 5
El Día de los Muertos: information questions with 'cuántos' and 'cuántas'
Me and others: plural 'estar' (for states) and 'ser' (for traits)
Learn it. Recall it. Make it stick.
IllumED Slides
IllumED · 1/10
Your learning goal
I can ask and answer questions about El Día de los Muertos using 'cuántos' and 'cuántas'.
1 of 10
El Día de los Muertos: information questions with 'cuántos' and 'cuántas': slides adapted from the imported teaching text; recall questions created from its keywords, learning points and common mistakes. Self-check practice, with no automatic grading or XP. Answers stay on this page and are cleared when you leave.
Original teaching resources
The original illustrated PowerPoint is available as well as the IllumED text slides. It retains the publisher’s design and credits.
Download original PowerPoint ↓What you’ll learn
I can ask and answer questions about El Día de los Muertos using 'cuántos' and 'cuántas'.
Key learning points
- Weak vowels [i] and [u] merge with strong vowels a, [o], and [e] to make a single syllable,
- The Day of the Dead is a Mexican holiday. Families set up and decorate special tables called 'altares'.
- The question word cuánto agrees with the gender and number of the noun it refers to: cuánto, cuánta, cuántos, cuántas.
- To describe plural nouns, add -s to adjectives ending in -a, -e and -o. For those ending in -l, -s or -z, we add -es.
Words to know
- strong vowel
- the vowels [a], [e], [u] which are pronounced separately when they appear next to each other
- weak vowel
- the vowels [i] and [u] which merge with [a], [e] and [o] to make a single syllable
- cuántos
- question word meaning 'how many' for masculine plural nouns
- cuántas
- question word meaning 'how many' for feminine plural nouns
Common mistakes
There is only one way to say 'how many' in Spanish: 'cuánto'.
In Spanish, the question word 'cuánto' agrees with the gender and number of the noun it refers to. There are four forms: cuánto (m), cuánta (f), cuántos (mpl) and cuántas (fpl),
For parents, carers and teachers
- There are lots of excellent videos and resources about El Dia de los Muertos, which would develop pupils' understanding further. It may be helpful to choose a small selection of these so that pupils can see El Dia de los Muertos in a real-life context.