Dia De Los Muertos/Day of the Dead Art!

This is a Day of the Dead project that I really enjoy doing for my 2nd graders. It's one of those lessons where they all come out looking good and the kids feel successful. Plus they get to learn about a Mexican holiday and their art style.

 

For this project we use transparency sheets, I have a ton of them that were no longer being used by our front office. I have two different skull templates that I drew up and laminated. If you had more time though you could have the kids draw their own skull. I then have the kids place the transparency sheet over the skull and trace it in black sharpie. Once they're finished they color it in colored sharpie.We then crumple up the foil slightly and put it behind the skull. After this step have the studentes make a frame for it. I've done this out of a paper plate for a circular frame or a whole 12x18 sheet of construction paper.

Now before I do this lesson I make sure to talk about holidays, holidays that we celebrate and holidays that we don't. We make a list of each. Then I ask the kids about the holidays we celebrate and if they think that they're celebrated in other countries just the same. We then read this book http://www.amazon.com/Dia-Muertos-Rookie-Read-About-Holidays/dp/051627354X/ref=sr_1_48?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380135921&sr=1-48&keywords=day+of+the+dead

It's a pretty easy read but what I like about it is that it's straight forward and gives real life pictures of the celebration. While we read the book we talk about similarities and differences. For example Yellow is the color used often for Day of the Dead, we talk about colors that are used during Valentines day, Christmas, Ect. I feel like this sets the climate for the project. Otherwise, just setting it in front of the kids, all they see is a skull and a skull is symbol that means different things in our culture than it does for Day of the Dead.

Any questions about the project ask away!

-Keep being an Awesome Artiste!