Wednesday works - (Friday edition) Dia de los Muertos

Forgive me for missing my Wednesday Works post.   I swear I posted.  I must have thought about posting, convinced myself I posted, and then moved on with my day.  Also stay tuned for a Friday Photos post at the end of the day.   We are doing our annual Halloween parade and party day, despite the weather forecast.  I'm assuming it might be an indoor parade.

I'm a subscriber to a blog that I just love, Deep Space Sparkle, and this lesson is directly from her.  This is the first time I've attempted a Day of the Dead lesson and I'm very glad I just happened to work with this group of 5th graders since I have one or two who celebrate this holiday in their own homes.   They were happy to talk about what their family does and it makes the kids more culturally aware when they know one of their classmates is willing to share all about it with them.

 This is McCoy  (you get bonus points if you can comment at the bottom of this post as it why he is named what he is named!)

 

We started off our lesson with history and a few short videos on the Day of the Dead celebrations, then talked about our ancestors.  When we started on the skeletons we talked about proportion and I mentioned the magician's trick of sawing a person in half as a way for the kids to think about the "halfway" point of a person's skeleton being on the halfway part of our papers.  

These are the skeletons in progress.   We'll be finishing up some today, just in time to hang them this morning out in the hallway.  I'd like to say I timed that perfectly, so yeah, we'll go with that idea.   :)

Have a great Dia de los Muertos!