Sixth grade Spanish students have been learning about Dia De Los Muertos, which translates to the Day of the Dead, a holiday that originates in Mexico. World Languages Department Chair Kara Mertz shared the cultural significance of Dia De Los Muertos with her students connecting some of its traditions  - building altars, dressing up in colorful clothes, and eating special foods - with holidays they may celebrate in their families. In November, students shared what they had learned in a Lower School Morning Meeting presentation. Recently, they also completed a cross-curricular Spanish and Creativity & Design Project where they incorporated traditional shapes and colors and their own creative flourishes into the design of calavera or skull, one of the artistic elements of this holiday. 

Following the design process, students studied the symbols and decorations common to this celebration and hand drew a rough draft of their calavera design. Then they were given a skull template and transferred their design, outlining the larger shapes in black that the laser cutter would cut. The images were scanned, vectorized, and loaded into Illustrator graphics software and sent to the laser cutter. Once students had their laser-cut design, they incorporated the colors and symbols that they had chosen. Some students created more intricate designs with additional cutout pieces, while others used colors and patterns to make their designs distinctive.

Once the calaveras were complete, each student wrote a paragraph in Spanish personifying their skull with a name, age, personality and likes and dislikes. Summarizing their written work, students worked on their pronunciation and fluency by giving an oral presentation about their skull to the class. Veda A’s floral calavera, named Valentina, is intelligent and positive and lives in The Bahamas where she enjoys listening to music. Robert A’s calavera lives in Antartica and is named Weehoo. Weehoo is very athletic and strong despite the fact that he does not like eating eggs!

The project helped students connect to the cultural significance of Dia De Los Muertos while practicing their Spanish reading and writing skills. It also whets their appetite for the kinds of projects they will do in Creators class next year when they will be able to easily access all the resources of the new Center for Creativity & Design. The variety of entry points in this kind of project gives students the chance to demonstrate their understanding in ways that feel comfortable as well as challenging. “I like the element of choice here,” says Kara. She notes that students who enjoy art will like hand drawing and coloring, and students that are more technologically inclined are adding another creativity and design skill, opening their imagination to everything else that they can create. “Each one is colorful, unique, and beautiful in its own way."