Day Of the Dead Skeletons

I did this lesson in the fall. In my district we have a large population of hispanic students and they always get excited when we do lessons that include a tradition from their culture. I even had a student who had participated in a Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico a couple of years ago. It was awesome to hear her first hand account of what she saw and did to celebrate this holiday. We discussed the tradition of the holiday and what the skeletons and marigold flowers represent. There are some good videos on You Tube that show people celebrating this holiday in the traditional manner in Mexico, as well as locally here in America.

Around Halloween time you can get cheap plastic skeletons at the Dollar Store. I loaded up this year on mini skeletons so each of my art tables could have two or three to look at. I had also printed out a few pictures of Day of the Dead skeleton drawings from the internet for students to reference as well.