Day of the dead with littles

It's almost time for the beautiful celebration of Día de los Muertos! This is my first year working in an elementary school during this holiday and I am excited to do a few activities and get the students interested. To begin, I asked my principals if I could set up a school wide altar at the entryway of the school and was told absolutely! They also asked that I send a letter out to parents telling them about the altar and inviting them to send a photo to add along with making sure they were ok with their kid participating in activities in my class. 

For the altar I used things that I have accumulated over the years from my high school days including a day of the dead table cloth (plastic/fabric backed from walmart), electric candles, a bowl of salt and water, fake orange and yellow flowers (I think they are daisies but they work) and printed out photos a few famous Hispanics along with some of my loved ones. I backed the photos with orange paper and made a makeshift stand using the same paper. To make it tiered I used a small table and a cardboard box. To decorate the wall behind it I created a mural activity and had students color the pieces. I also made an informational bulletin board print out to post around the edges of the mural.

I love how it turned out and it is up just in time for parent teacher conferences this week so parents can see it. If you want a copy of my bulletin board facts and parent letter you can get them for FREE linked below. The mural is available on my TPT store with the link below as well.​

FREE Bulletin Board for DoD

Day of the Dead Collaborative Mural

FREE DoD Parent Letter

In regards to what I am doing with students for the holiday, I created two different presentations including videos and images to introduce the holiday and what it means along with some basic vocabulary. One is for 3rd-5th and the other is for K-2. They are pretty similar but the older one has a section discussing how Mexicans view death in comparison to Americans which I thought might be a difficult thing to discuss with super littles. Both presentations end with a craftivity. 3-5 will make papel picado and K with make calavera masks. If you are interested in purchasing my lessons complete with presentation, lesson plan and printables you can find them on my TPT store using the link below. You can also find a few additional free activities for students related to Day of the Dead on my TPT including a digital drag and drop/bitmoji activity.

3-5 & K-2 Day of the Dead Lesson