El día de los muertos is one of the most exciting holidays to celebrate with Spanish students! The holiday is full of colorful imagery, sweet treats, craft projects, and great movies like Coco! Spanish teachers look forward to celebrating el día de los muertos in their classrooms each year!
As a result, many of our older Spanish students have already learned about this holiday. They may have already decorated sugar skulls or seen various movies about Day of the Dead. Therefore, with my older students, I find that a quick review is more effective and age-appropriate. These día de los muertos activities also lend themselves really well to distance learning and celebrating the holiday virtually.
Student-led research
To assess what your students already know about the Day of the Dead, begin with this presentation. Make a copy for each class period. The first two pages are a KWL chart(Know, Want to know, Learn), which we fill in together as a class.
I write student’s names next to their questions. Then that person becomes responsible for researching an answer to his/her own día de los muertos question. If a student cannot come up with a unique question, I allow him/her to choose from the list and repeat. Next, I assign each student a number, which I have pre-typed on their slides. (Sometimes I also pre-type each student’s name onto a slide, depending on the group. This helps eliminate questions and confusion about which slide they need to work on) Students go to their assigned slide and type their question and name at the top. Then they research their Day of the Dead topic and create a slide with the answer. Here are some samples.
Teaching about the Symbolism of the holiday
Finally, at the end of their personal slides, I create blank slides with a title at the top including something I want them to learn about el día de los muertos. As they finish their personal slide, I let them find a partner who is also done and choose one of my slides to research and complete. Here are some samples:
Students may decorate their slides however they wish. When they finish, they go through and read each other’s slides to complete the “Learn” piece of the día de los muertos KWL chart. They do this with an exit slip where I just ask them to write 3-5 things they have learned about this holiday on a notecard.
If you would like to save time, click here to purchase and use my templates! This also includes a video and 5 question Google Forms día de los muertos quiz.
Celebrating el día de los muertos around the world
Most Spanish teachers focus their día de los muertos lessons around the traditions in Mexico, but did you know that it is celebrated in other countries too? Ok, maybe YOU knew that. After all, you’re reading a blog for Spanish teachers, but I can almost guarantee that your students did not know!
With the huge influx of students from Central America and other parts of the world, you may want to consider taking a more global approach to your día de los muertos activities this year!
I created this Day of the Dead activity that looks at how four different countries celebrate the holiday. To see where else it is celebrated, check out this cool article from Remezcla. To keep things manageable, I just chose these four countries: Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Spain. That covers North America, Central America, South America, and Europe!
Each slide has a short video describing the traditions and celebrations unique to that country. Most of the videos are in Spanish with English subtitles or some bilingual combination. This should make the activity accessible to multiple levels of students.
A culinary look at Día de los muertos
My favorite part of any holiday or celebration is the food that goes with it! While we have always taught students about pan de muerto and calaveras de azucar as traditional día de los muertos dishes, Guatemala serves a dish called fiambre and Ecuador has a traditional purple drink. Students will learn about these dishes through short video clips or recipes linked on each slide. When the world gets back to normal, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to bring in these dishes for our students to try? Yum!
What if my student is not allowed to study el día de los muertos?
There has been some discussion in the Spanish teacher forums lately about alternative activities for students whose parents do not what them to study el día de los muertos. In my experience, parents who want their child to opt-out of Day of the Dead assignments either have religious objections or are worried that the imagery will be too scary for their child.
The great part about these two activities is that they can be customized for these students. Because the first activity is based on student interest, encourage the child to ask a question about other holidays that are celebrated in Mexico besides Day of the Dead. Religion does not have to enter into their research at all. If the child really needs to be sheltered, have them create their own presentation so they do not have to see the work of their peers.
To modify the second activity, día de los muertos around the world, ask the student to just focus on the foods. They do not need to watch the videos about the holiday, but foods are a cultural element that fascinate students and tend to be non-controversial.
