Every year Mexicans celebrate the Dia de Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. This custom is a bright and vibrant holiday where families come together to remember and honor their deceased relatives. Families set up altars in their home with pictures, jewelry, and candles to create a special space of memorial for the deceased. Families might also include special items on the altar, like special keepsakes that belonged to the deceased or even a dish of their favorite food.
Then, families go to the cemetery where their relatives are buried to celebrate. They spend some time cleaning the gravestones of their loved ones, singing songs together, and recalling fond memories of their ancestors. They bring a massive picnic of special foods and treats and sit down together at the gravesite to eat and celebrate.
This holiday is a favorite with children because of the bright and colorful decorations that are created for this special day. Decadent treats in the shape of skulls, called sugar skulls, are decorated with a unique and vibrant style. Bright colors, flowers, and intricate designs are featured heavily in the style of the day. People may even paint their own faces to resemble that of a sugar skull, paired with huge, beautiful floral hairpieces, bright costumes, and lots of incredible jewelry.
While many may mark this day as solemn or even scary, Dia de Los Muertos is a joyful and fun holiday where families have a chance to spend lots of quality time together. Far from being bleak or mournful, Dia de Los Muertos is happy, celebratory, and sometimes even silly.
A great activity to do with kids to prepare for the day is to create sugar skulls of your own! A simple way to do it in a classroom is to have students paint or draw their sugar skull. Starting with an outline of a skull, children can add on their own elaborate decorations using paint, markers, glitter, and other crafting materials.
For more of a treat, kids can decorate their own real sugar skulls or even make them from scratch. They are super easy to make and a great cooking and crafting activity for even young children! Simply combine granulated sugar with a touch of water and pack it into a skull-shaped mold. Molds can be ordered online or picked up from your local Latin market. Once the sugar is packed into the mold, bake it at a low temperature until it's completely dry and firm. Once it's cooled completely, you can decorate it! Using food dyes, food-safe markers, candies, and frosting will keep the skulls edible so you can enjoy them as a treat when you're done. You can also use regular old crafting supplies if you're planning on keeping them out to display rather than eating them up!
There are lots of other baking and cooking activities you can do for Day of the Dead with children beyond sugar skull creation. Creating huge feasts to share on the holiday, as well as offerings to leave at altars, is a huge part of the day's celebrations. While any kind of delicious food is acceptable for both picnics and offerings, or ofrendas, there are a few different types of food that are a popular favorite for Dia de Los Muertos. Pan de Muerto is a special bread recipe that's made for the holiday that's decorated with bright frosting, and tamales, hot chocolate, tortilla soup, and mole are all also big favorites. Try out a recipe or two as a family and get the kids involved in making it!
Creating altars for deceased loved ones is also a great way to involve kids in the celebration of the holiday. It's important to emphasize with them that this holiday is about celebration, not about sadness, so encourage them to talk about the happy memories they shared with their deceased loved ones and the things they loved most about them. Have them gather special items for the altar, like belongings of their loved one or old photos. They can even create special decorations, like drawing a picture, gathering bouquets of flowers, or cooking special food.
Spending time together as a family is the most crucial element of celebrating Dia de Los Muertos. Giving kids simple, fun activities, like coloring pages, crafts, and cooking projects can be a great way to facilitate that time together. You can also include other activities, like learning Spanish songs about the holiday, reading books together, or watching educational videos about the history of the day. For older children, doing a fun research project looking into the native traditions of the holiday can be a great way to build more cultural awareness. However, the most important element is spending time together with your children, discussing the history of your family, and marking the important occasion by honoring your family that has passed away.
MEET MS. WENDY
Wendy Toribio-Baez lives and breathes for the wholesomeness of early childhood. She is a Behavior and Learning Scientist, who guides parents and teachers in providing optimal learning experiences for young children. In her personal practice, Wendy creates and implements individualized plans to help her students efficiently acquire communication, independence, learning and academic skills. With almost 10 years of experience as a Founder and Educational Director of various early childhood learning havens, Wendy has partnered with hundreds of educators, psychologists and other professionals to become a resource for the families she supports. And, she also walks the walk. A millennial mom, Wendy and her two little girls have a ton of fun homeschooling, unschooling and re-schooling; always with intent, curiosity and goodness.
Wendy Toribio-Baez is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA) who earned her Masters of Science in Teaching (MST) in Early Childhood-Early Childhood Special Education from Fordham University, where she was President of Kappa Delta Pi, International Honor Society in Education. If you’d like extra support with your little one, feel free to email her!