Día de los Muertos / Day of the Dead or Halloween? October starts and there is this buzz in the classrooms about what to wear for Halloween. When we get near to the date, the conversation about chocolate, candy, and costumes is constant. Our minds, however, revolves around Dia de los Muertos / Day of the Dead, its significance on the one hand, and the different ways that is celebrated in Spanish-speaking communities around the world.
Depending on the age group we teach any given year, we use different resources gathered along the way. Therefore, if somebody asks us, ‘How do you celebrate El Dia de los Muertos / Day of the Dead?’ the answer will vary as we gear our choice of resources to the students we teach, what is going on in the world, and other circumstances. Sometimes we choose to teach resources about Halloween to have students compare the two celebrations.
Resources
Below you will find a list of some resources that Gaby, Marcela, and myself have used related to The Day of the Dead/Halloween in our years of teaching. Enjoy!
Día de los Muertos: Art
A Room of her Own: an Altar for my Mother, by Sandra Cisneros
Smithsonian Learning Lab– Smithsonian Latino Center
Day of the Dead – National Geographic Photos
Day of the Dead – Kids NG Photos
Articles
Let Día de los Muertos Stand on Its Own | Learning for Justice
El dia de los muertos en America Latina: su origen y como se celebra
Articles about Day of the Dead by Scholastic Magazines ¿Qué Tal? – Ahora
Día de los Muertos: Books
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The Day of the Dead: A Bilingual Celebration by Bob Barner
Day of the Dead by Tony Johnston, Jeannette Winter (illustrator)
Tumba by Mira Canion
La bruja Winnie by Valery Thomas and Korky Paul
Recuerdo a abuelito by Janice Levy (Author), Loretta Lopez (Illustrator), Miguel Arisa (Translator)
La familia de Federico Rico by Craig Klein Dexemple
Día de los Muertos: Lesson Plans
Movies
Día de los Muertos: Songs
La bruja cereza es la mas traviesa
Día de los Muertos: Websites
Real Spanish Right Away Free Activities in Spanish, French, Mandarin
YouTubes
Day of the Dead – Flavor and Tradition
Dia de los Muertos – Day of the Dead
Day of the Dead – Sugar Skulls
Day of the Dead- Monarch Butterfly Migration to Michoacán, México
What resources do you use to teach El Día de los Muertos / the Day of the Dead? Share them with us!
by Gabriela Barbieri, Marcela Velikovsky, and Vicky Masson –
Interdisciplinary Connections is a column of Language Teaching Lab to show specific examples of connections between world language teaching and other subjects at school