"Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life. "
This past week my classes focused on creating an altar for Dia de los Muertos, a national holiday in Mexico that celebrates the lives of friends and family members who have passed away. We created over 200 different calaveras for the project and decided that the altar would be a symbol of things passed that we were all thankful for.
Five 2nd grade classes created large paper calaveras using a variety of paper materials, glitter, and colored pencils.
Five 3rd grade classes collaborated to make papel picado, tissue paper flowers, specialty foods, and full-size skeletons.
And, my four 4th grade classes created faux sugar skulls out of air-dry clay.
We had over 250 young people working on this project throughout the week. We found the shape of our altar through trial and error, after looking at several images of altars online. We set things down, moved them around, and finalized placement only after everyone agreed. It was fun to watch the classes come in each day and see something new in the center of the space. (Upon entering the classroom, almost every single student would quietly squeak out a "whoa", "cool", or "awesome".)
It was an exhausting undertaking . . . But what I've realized is that both the students and I are happier when we are working together on something, figuring things out at the same rate, and learning new things. All at once!
Only a handful of my students knew what Dia de los Muertos was. Being from Texas, Austin in particular, I was used to celebrating this holiday on a regular basis. So it made me really happy to be able to share something with my students that I often miss and a celebration that I hold very dear to me.
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