Color Sticks and Calaveras

This little third grade Dia de Los Muertos project was enjoyed by my third graders and by me, too! 

I love Crayola Color Sticks – they can be a nice alternative to oil pastels when you don’t need to blend colors and don’t want the awful fingerprints all over the nice pictures. No need to sharpen, peel, or wash off and they keep working even when they break. 👍🏼

I found the idea here and we made it our own. Thanks, Ms. Kristen!

We used paint only to made the skeleton. While that was drying, we glued the squares for the border. The second class we added the facial details and flowers with the color sticks. Voila! 
   
    
    
 
Ps – I love how commonplace Day of the Dead has become. The kids totally get the idea behind it and love sharing their own memories of lost loved ones with their class. The symbolism is meaningful, colorful, and fun and I think one of the most important lessons we learn in life is to remember our history, be grateful that it happened, and celebrate the good times instead of hanging onto the sad. 

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Fall, Halloween, and El Dia de Los Muertos

Lots of fun projects happening the last couple of weeks! 

   
    
   
 Deep Space Sparkle always has amazing ideas. I adapted her 5th grade lesson for my first graders and they absolutely loved it!   

    
    
Kinders worked hard on their folk art kitties! Thanks to Art Projects for Kids for this great idea!    
    
    
   

Cursive Calaveras

My third graders are learning to write cursive and I thought this project would be absolutely perfect to go along with their new writing skills. I found this project on The Kessler School’s Artsonia page. This is my example, step by step and I’ll be sharing my students’ as they finish!

*UPDATE*
We are finishing up our Cursive Calaveras and they look phenomenal! We decided to add the colorful border and the monarch butterflies in honor of Dia de Los Muertos.

Creepin’ Calaveras!

I decided to do some Dia de los Muertos art this year so as not to be taken over by the Halloween bug. The kids loved them and they have been getting lots of compliments from others on their beautiful and colorful work! We discussed the traditions of the celebration and looked at some examples of different types of art associated with Dia de los Muertos. Then we discussed the colorful backgrounds we were shooting for and the types of designs to be included. I cut several different colors of 9×12 paper and let them choose from those bright colors. They used construction paper crayons to create the designs. The next class, we looked at this website to follow step-by-step instructions on how to draw a skull. I gave them a 4.5×6 piece of white paper for them to do the skull. We drew in pencil and then outlined in Sharpie. They drew their calavera designs with construction paper crayons as well. The third class they cut out the skulls, glued them to the background, and filled in any empty space around their skulls. I don’t think I had a “bad” one in the bunch. Fun project!