Second Grade Day of the Dead

We started out by looking at a presentation on the Day of the Dead and discussing where and when the Day of the Dead is celebrated. We focused this project on the Day of the Dead calaveras (skulls). They children practiced drawing their skull in their sketchbooks and colored them using complementary colors.

There were 3 choices for projects:

The first one was a calavera made out of Claycrete. The students mixed the claycrete with water and glue and formed the shape of the skull. Once it was dry, they painted it 1 color with acrylic paint. They added facial features with sequins, pipe cleaners and other materials that they found interesting.

The second project was a calavera in a frame. They drew the skull onto a transparency and painted it with white acrylic paint. They turned the transparency to the back side and used Sharpies to decorate it.

The third project that the students could choose was a printing project. The student drew their calavera onto a piece of cardboard. They traced it with white glue and let it dry. Then they made three different prints using the cardboard. The first print was a crayon rubbing. The second print was done by rolling ink onto the cardboard and creating a print on white paper. For the last one, they covered the cardboard with a piece of aluminum foil and then rubbed the foil so that the glue created a bas relief. They used Sharpies to color the aluminum.

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