Dia De Los Muertos: Free Resources

I love Fall and every Fall I teach my class about Dia De Los Muertos; a holiday celebrated by some Mexicans and Mexican Americans where they honor loved ones who have passed on. It's a great holiday to start the conversation about cultural differences. It's also really beautiful and kids can connect the concept to their lives because everyone can relate to the ideas of family and love. 

We are so lucky to live in a city with a great Art Museum. This great Art Museum hosts a Dia De Los Muertos event each year and offers scholarships for local low-income schools to come and visit the exhibits. I jumped right on that throwing together a field trip in less than 2 weeks; parent volunteers, scholarship application, bussing, lunches, and all! I teach in the 3rd largest district in my state serving more than 28,000 children so this was no small feat! I annoyed a few people because I totally didn't follow protocol which calls for all field trips to be scheduled 6 or more weeks in advance, but I will upset a few people for my students any day of the week!

Most of my students had never been to the museum despite it being 15 minutes away from our school. This is why field trips are so important! Especially for low income students whose parents often don't have the resources or time to provide them with these experiences. They got to look at all the art exhibits, but I will highlight the Dia De Los Muertos gallery here. They were entranced with the beautiful colors of the altars and stories of loved ones who had passed one. 

We were also incredibly lucky to get to speak to a woman who had built an altar for her granddaughter who passed away unexpectedly 2 years ago. Conversations between different generations is something to cherish so I will always remember this special moment my class was able to experience.








In addition to our museum experience, we did a few activities in the classroom. I'm the queen of finding quality activities that are FREE for little units like this and I wanted to share what I found. Thank you to the authors for sharing your great work with us!

My students read about the holiday and completed the comprehension questions with this worksheet from education.com

Then they really enjoyed the coloring sheets provided by Standoo.org.  So beautiful and intricate!

Lastly, I used the resource pack from the Mexic-Arte Museum to educate myself further on the holiday. It has many great activities for the classroom too!

I hope you will consider talking about this holiday in your classroom if you are able to start the conversation about cultural differences. If you are unable to talk abut the holiday, try to plan a field trip of any kind! Getting these kids out into the real world is critical to helping them grow into successful citizens who contribute to their community. Happy Day!