Dia de los Muertos Activities For Kids
Are you looking for ways to celebrate and learn about Dia de los Muertos? Before I started learning Spanish with my daughter, I didn’t know that much about the Mexican holiday. Now that we’re knee deep in our Spanish learning, I know so much more!
Part of our learning came from the sheer amount of Spanish books and resources that there are surrounding the holiday.
Today I am going to share a little bit about the holiday and share some of the things that my daughter and I do to acknowledge Dia de los Muertos.
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Table of Contents
What Is Dia de los Muertos?
Dia de los Muertos is a Mexican holiday that is celebrated on November 2. The holiday has strong Catholic ties to All Saint’s Day and is a religious time to remember and celebrate family members who have died.
Families often gather together in the home or in the cemetery to honor their ancestors. Picnics in the cemetery with food and music are common ways to celebrate and honor the souls of the departed.
While celebrations vary by region some common elements include:
“ofrendas” – Alters that can be built at the cemetery or in the family’s home, that include food, drinks, treats and items that the deceased enjoyed during their lifetime. Some ofrendas also include marigolds and other decorations.
“calaveras” – Decorated skulls are another common element of Dia de los Muertos. These skulls are typically seen as symbolic and decorative as opposed to scary. Sugar skulls and decorated skulls are enjoyed by families or left on ofrendas for their loved ones.
“cempasuchil” – Marigolds, also known as “Flor de Muerto” are used to decorate ofrendas and cemeteries.
“alebrijes”– Alebrijes are not strictly for the celebration of Dia de los Muertos. These figures are the creation of Mexican artist Pedro Linares. Usually a mixture of animals (part donkey, part butterfly, etc) these are traditional Mexican folk art pieces that often make an appearance in Mexican holidays.
“papel picado” – This Mexican folkart is also not strictly for Dia de los Muertos, but is a common site around most cemeteries and ofrenads. Papel picado is tissue paper that has an intricate design marked into it. A typical use of papel picado is to string several pieces together to make a banner to hang across a doorway or to adorn an ofrenda.
Dia de los Muertos Activities For Kids
Since I have been learning Spanish with my daughter we have found many resources related to Dia de los Muertos. Because of that, we talk about it and read about it each year. Here are some of our favorite activities to do to learn about Dia de los Muertos.
A note going forward: my daughter and I are not Mexican and we are not celebrating Dia de los Muertos in a religious context. Since we have learned so much about it from the resources we have, we take the time each year to acknowledge it in our own way, almost like non-Christians who recognize Christmas and take part in popularized activities surrounding the holiday.
Watch Coco
Since the Disney film, “Coco” came out when my daughter was 2 years old, we made it’s viewing a family tradition. Each year on Dia de los Muertos, we cozy up on the couch together and enjoy watching Miguel and Dante navigate through their family drama on the night of Dia de los Muertos.
Since “Coco” is so family friendly and mild, it is a great way to help kids who might be afraid of skeletons and death to learn about Dia de los Muertos. The skeletons in the movie are very human like and animated in ways to make them more life like and less scary and most of the parts that deal directly with death are gentle or abstract in ways that won’t scare younger viewers.
The movie also captures some of the traditional elements of the holiday, such as ofrendas and alebrijes and offers child friendly explanations of the celebration.
Make Skull Cookies
While I’m not a good baker, we do make skull cookies every year! Instead of making the sugar skulls, we stick to basic sugar cookies that we cut in the shape of skulls (light bulbs?? It’s a Spanish blog, not a food blog 😊).
Since we have so many Dia de los Muertos books, we typically get a few out for inspiration before we decorate. I buy several containers of white and colored frosting as well as sugar sprinkles and other decorations.
This is also a great place to talk about, “La Catrina” or read books about her if you have them. La Catrina or la calavera is a widely known symbol for Dia de los Muertos and is often incorporated into handcrafts and decorations for this holiday.
My daughter and I decorate the cookies to eat and also give away to friends and family.
Read “Dia de los Muertos” Books
Reading books about Dia de los Muertos is one of the main ways that we learned so much about the holiday. One of my favorite places to buy Spanish books is Scholastic Book Club. Every fall their magazine is filled with Spanish and bilingual Dia de los Muertos books.
Since I’ve been buying and collecting Spanish books for my daughter since she was born, we have literally dozens of books for this holiday. For the whole month of October, leading up to Dia de los Muertos, we read one book each night.
We also have some Dia de los Muertos books with CD that we listen to in the car for added Spanish audio time and we have a great graphic novel that talks about Dia de los Muertos.
This is a cute book with CD that we listen to in the car around Dia de los Muertos. It explains the difference between Halloween and Dia de los Muertos and emphasizes that the skeletons/dead are not to be afraid of.
This graphic novel might be for young adults as opposed to children. The story follows a high schooler learning about Dia de los Muertos while also facing the possibility of her own sister’s death. Read the full article about it here.
Papel Picado
While making real and intricate papel picado is a challenge, there are fun ways to make simpler designs with kids.
Similar to making paper snowflakes with kids in the winter, making papel picado with tissue paper can be done by folding the tissue paper and cutting out designs.
For a great step by step process, Kids Craft: Papel Picado.
When you’re done, make sure to hang them all along a string to make a banner to decorate your home!
Listen To Music!
Playing music on Dia de los Muertos is a must! Listening to Mexican mariachi music is a great way to introduce your child to Mexican culture and have them get a better understanding of the celebration.
We also listen to some Dia de los Muertos songs that we’ve found and enjoyed over the years. Here is one of our favorites, “Chumbala Cachumbala”. This song is a typical children’s song in Mexico that relates the hours of the clock to dancing skeletons/skulls. We also have a few Dia de los Muertos books that illustrate this children’s song.
As is the case with most Disney movies, “Coco” also has a great soundtrack and we incorporate several of those songs on our Dia de los Muertos playlist. Here are some of our favorites:
How did you acknowledge Dia de los Muertos this year? Did you try anything new? Let me know in the comments!
Happy Learning!
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