Dia De Los Muertos

Dia de los Muertos honors the dead with festivals and lively celebrations, a typically Latin American custom that combines indigenous Aztec ritual, brought to the region by Spanish conquistadors. (Dia de los Muertos is celebrated on All Souls Day.

Assured that the dead would be insulted by mourning or sadness, Dia de los Muertos celebrates the lives of the deceased with food, drink, parties, and activities the dead enjoyed in life. Dia de los Muertos recognizes death as a natural part of the human experience, a continuum with birth, childhood, and growing up to become a contributing member of the community. On Dia de los Muertos, the dead are also a part of the community, awakened from their eternal sleep to share celebrations with their loved ones. -National Geographic

This week in Escuelita, we celebrated Dia de los Muertos. We asked our families to send in pictures of missed loved ones and created an altar to remember them by.

We decorated calavares, sugar skulls.

The Aztec woman visited our classroom and taught us about bones and feathers. She sang songs with us.

We painted our faces.

We touched our arms, our legs, our heads, and felt the strong bones inside. Bones give our bodies shape! Animals have bones. We examined the bones of a fish.

We talked about those we love, the people we are grateful for, those we miss. We created grateful garlands by writing these names on cloth, and painting vivid colors all around them. We hung them in our classroom to remember.

And a very special thank you to Esperanza for sharing with our class about Dio de los Muertos!