Dia de los Muertos: Fifth Grade Tin Ornaments

This project goes waaaaaaay back to the days of my undergrad back at EIU.  I remember attending a workshop at the Tarble Arts Center where we made some tin ornaments inspired by Mexican Folk Artists.   It was kind of involved.  I remember using tin snips, sharp edges, and the colors we used were stinky and intense.  I totally modified over the years for fifth grade.

This lesson was an integration of our Hispanic Heritage Month and Day of the Dead Studies.  In the past I would also integrate with the students' studies of anatomy, but I do not even know what grade they teach that in anymore.

Yes, corner sun.  That is how you get  used as an example on this blog.

Students drew their festive skeleton on paper first.  We taped our paper to thin aluminum and traced our pencil lines.  We had newspaper place mats underneath to give the metal some give.  Then, we used a plastic stylus and traced one. more. time. directly onto the metal. We added a decorative border and colored with sharpies.  Finally, we added a fun mat of construction paper and GLITTER!

Dia de los Muertos: Fourth Grade Sugar Skull Portraits

To coincide with our studies of Day of the Dead & Hispanic Heritage Month, fourth grade made these awesome sugar skull portraits.  

I totally stole the lesson from Deep Space Sparkle, and I was not disappointed.  What I loved most about this lesson was that every child succeeded and enjoyed the project so much. The glitter was out of this world, and the only complaint was that I left the tub of "used" glitter by my desk and when the kids walked by during the Halloween parade they kept putting their hands in it.  It is really hard to resist sticking your hands in a tub of glitter.