El dia De los Muertos

 About 50% of my schools student population is hispanic, so this year I wanted to teach my students about the day of the dead! Second graders drew and painted a full figured skeleton or calaca, and completed them using oil pastels, sequins, and tissue paper. The third grade curriculum required for them to create a mask, so we made sugar skull paintings, again completed with oil pastels, sequins, and tissue paper. The results were pretty fabulous! Finally I had my fourth graders test their cutting skills while creating papel picado, cut paper banners. Unforunately I only could find one pattern for the papel picado lesson online. If you are reading this and know of other online reasources that provide more free templates please let me know, thanks! Enjoy :)

El Dia De Los Muertos: Skulls in Progress

To celebrate the day of the dead we are kicking it up a notch from last years stuffed coloring sheets of skulls. We are making skull masks using paster gauze and plastic mask mold forms. Once dry the students are decorating them with sharpie markers, paint, sequins, and glitter glue! Of course the project will be followed up with a lesson on the Day of the Dead, a video on the holiday and we will be making sugar skulls.

Students smoothing out the plaster over the masks. Notice that there are circles drawn around the eyes and nose, this is to keep the students from covering up those areas. Skulls do not have eyes and noses only cavities where they are supposed to be.

Students use sharpies, paint, and glitter glue to decorate thier skulls with.

One of the final products. More to come! All will be posted on our schools artsonia.com account!