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Description

As part of the ‘International’ badge, this activity will cover both the ‘Make’, ‘Food’ and ‘Festival’ section of the badge requirements.

Resources

• Speaker for Phone (optional)
• Phone with a playlist of music (optional)
• Marshmallows
• Food Icing Pens
• Hundreds & Thousands
• Calavera Mask template, printed on card, (Appendix 2)
• Scissors
• Colouring Pens/Pencils
• Lollipop Sticks
• Masking tape
• iPad/Laptop

Instructions

GROUP ACTIVITY – WHAT IS ‘EL DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS’? – “FESTIVAL”
Equipment
• Speaker for phone (optional)
• ‘El Día de los Muertos’ playlist (optional) (Appendix 3 shows potential songs)
Instructions
1. Welcome the YPs, and ask if they know what today is. If using music, this can be put on for this activity.
2. ‘El DÍa de los Muertos’ or ‘The Day of the Dead’ is a Mexican festival of remembrance and should not be confused with Halloween. It is a day where families will visit cemeteries and decorate tombstones to honour their loved ones that have passed – and the celebration goes on for two days. It is believed that the link between the spirit world and the mortal world is at it’s weakest so it is easier to communicate on these days.
3. Discuss the symbols of El Día de los Muertos
a. Flowers – especially marigolds or ‘cempasúchil’ <sempa-su-chee> and how they are believed to help guide souls.
b. Calacas <ka-la-kaz> are colourful and decorated skeleton figures which are used to decorate pathways, alters, and graves.
c. Parades – children and adults will dress up as ‘La Catrina’ <la ka-trinah> – using face paints and clothes to make themselves look like skeletons. They will then parade through the streets and cemeteries, playing music and dancing.
d. Shells – people will wear jewellery made of shells, or attach shells to their clothes so that when they dance the noise will wake up the dead and their loved ones.
e. Food – ‘Pan de Muerto’ <pan duh mwerto> is sweet, orange flavoured bread decorated to look like marigolds or skulls; tamales; sugar skulls of ‘calaveras’ <ka-la-vair-az>.
f. Ofrendas <off-ren-az> – families will make ‘altares’ <al-tah-rez> or shrines of their loved ones in their homes or gardens which they then use to pray to and make offerings ‘offrendas’ of the things their loved ones liked like toys, sweets, football shirts, candles, pan de muerto, cempasúchiles <sempa-su-chee-lez>
3. Have the children fill in the blanks of the sheets below (appendix 1).
4. Split the children into two groups to go and complete activities one and two separately, rotating between the two activities.

ACTIVITY ONE – MARSHMALLOW CALAVERAS – “FOOD”
Equipment
• Marshmallows
• Food Icing Pens
• Hundreds & Thousands
• Cocktail/Lollipop Sticks
Instructions
1. Place the marshmallow on the cocktail/lollipop stick – this can be done prior to the YPs’ arrival.
2. Using the icing, draw on the mouth, nose, and eyes.
3. Using the icing, decorate the rest of the face with different shapes, sprinkling on the hundreds and thousands.

ACTIVITY TWO – CALAVERA MASK – "MAKE"
Equipment
• Calavera Mask template, printed on card, (Appendix 2)
• Scissors
• Colouring Pens/Pencils
• Lollipop Sticks
• Masking tape
• String/cotton
• iPad/Laptop
Instructions
1. Review examples of Calaveras on iPad/Laptop screen.
2. Carefully cut out the template, including eye holes.
3. Colour in the template.
4. Once finished, stick a lollipop stick to the back of the mask using the masking tape so the mask can be held up; alternatively, string or cotton can be used at either side of the mask.

Tags

• Festival
• Festivals
• food
• international
• masks

Badge Links

• International - Festival
• International - Food
• International - Make