Day of the Dead
On the Day of the Dead (el Dia de los Muertos), people in Mexico remember and honor their dead relatives. On this day, they decorate their homes with special home altars featuring playful imagery of human skeletons, and they leave offerings of food for the spirits of the dead. Also, the graves of the deceased relatives are visited and cared for. The Day of the Dead is celebrated from the evening of October 31 through November 2.
These crafts projects are for preschool, kindergarten and elementary school children. The crafts use materials found around the house, like boxes, egg cartons, cardboard, paper, string, crayons, paint, glue, etc. See a page about color mixing to see how to combine paint to make all the colors of the rainbow.
Day of the Dead Crafts
Click on any of the crafts to go to the instructions. Have fun!
A simple skeleton made by gluing dried pasta on black paper.
A skeleton you can print and put together for a great scary decoration.
Make a scary ghost necklace from white glue!
Make a string of ghosts to hang around a room.
A scary ghost made from a balloon, newspaper, and flour glue.
This ghost is easy to make from a balloon and two plastic grocery bags.
Make a scary party piñata from a paper bag and colored tissue paper. You can shape the piñata any way you like, even as a skull!
Sugar Skull Coloring Pages
Color these Day of the Dead sugar skulls, either on paper or on the computer!
Color in a plain sugar skull, either interactively or on paper.
Color in a geometric-pattern sugar skull, either interactively or on paper.
Color in a floral-pattern sugar skull, either interactively or on paper.
Related Links
Rhymes, crafts, a quiz, and coloring pages to print out.
Human adults have 206 bones in their body - learn the names of the major bones.
You can label the major bones in this human skeleton printout.
Connect the numbers and letters to draw a skull.
This is a printable maze!
Write a poem about ghosts. Start each line with a letter from the word “ghost.”
Learn all about Mexico.
Mexican flag printouts to color, together with information on the history of the flag and the symbolism in it.
Read about the geography of Mexico.
Do a fill-in-the-blank activity on Mexico’s fight for independence from Spain.
Label a map of Mexico.
A printout of the map of Mexico, with information on the geography of the country.
Look at the map and answer 10 geography questions about Mexico.
An English-Spanish picture-dictionary for children.
The pictures and words in this on-line illustrated dictionary are links to educational activities, games, and nursery rhymes.
A collection of pages on the numbers in Spanish.