Day of the Dead

Silly Skeletons          

for 

Day of the Dead

          Each year my 5th graders have a Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead celebration as close to Nov. 1 and Nov. 2 as possible.    The students pick a person whose life they would like to celebrate.     The families talk about the aspect of their life and what the person looked like.      I have the students complete a research sheet to have all the details in one place. 

        We make little paper stand up skeletons for each person's life that we celebrate.    The instructions were to give the person a silly hat to wear and something that they liked, such as a favorite food or candy, in their hand.    You can see that the students had talked to their parents and knew about each person.

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for the 
Five for Friday Linky Party -

www.doodlebugsteaching.blogspot.com 

     The students bring in a shoe box to make a small altar for the celebration.
A picture, candle, flower, and decorations are placed on a small piece of cloth used as an altar cloth. 

     Each child has a turn to speak about their person.     I encourage them to tell a funny story about this person.    This takes their minds off the fact that the person has passed on before us.

          This year I worked with the Art teacher to have the students make skeleton masks or sugar skulls.     In Mexico and Mexican neighborhoods in the United States, small and large skulls are made out of sugar for the Dia de los Muertos celebration.     It was a great lesson in symmetry.      Here are some examples of their sugar skulls.     The students used construction paper, crayons, and markers.

Please leave a message or comment if you get a chance.

Enjoy the beautiful day!

I have linked up with Teaching blog Addict for Freebie Friday.

Check out all the great ideas this week. 

www.teachingblogaddict.blogspot.com 

It's never too early to prepare for our Halloween activities.
Happy Halloween to all!

Beti 

Symmetry Skeletons

        Symmetry Skeletons     

    Halloween lends itself to a lesson on symmetry very well.  The lessons of symmetry have been in Math books from 1st grade.  I use this with my 5th graders. So a short bit of review may be necessary for some vocabulary terms. When you show the kiddos that they are going to be designing skeleton heads, they are ready and willing to work.

 Today I am linking up with Forever in Fifth Grade for the October Show and Tell Tuesday.

www.foreverinfifthgrade.blogspot.com


    First folding the paper is necessary to form the head shape.  The fold can then be used as the mid line for the correct placement of the facial features and extra designs. Markers, crayons, and some scrap paper and glue is all the students need to complete this project.
 

      This lesson can be related to Dia de Los Muertos   or  Day of the Dead which occurs on November 1st and 2nd. 

 As you can see, each student has their own impression of how each skeleton should look.
 

I hope you have a wonderful 

Halloween  this year.

Please leave a comment. I'd love to hear from you.

Beti