I first found the Day of the Dead Activity Book last month when I was browsing on Amazon for Día de Muertos books to add to the round up I was putting together. I totally based a book by its cover and, loving what I could see, I immediately added it to my cart and had it within days in my mailbox.
This is one impulse buy I don’t regret.
Karl Jones, author, and Steve Simpson, illustrator, just released this book this year and we’re thrilled they did. The intro offers a concise, yet precise, and beautifully illustrated description of what Day of the Dead, as celebrated in México, and ofrendas are.
The rest of the pages are filled with activities, recipes, crafts, coloring pages, paper figures and even stickers — all with colorful and lively illustrations by Steve Simpson.
This is certainly a book that’s meant to be dug into, torn and scribbled all over, so I might just need to buy another one because it feels and looks like something I want to keep around even as a collectible.
Inside, you will find activities such as:
Day of the Dead Maze
Sugar Skull and Graveyard Cake recipes
Day of the Dead Crossword and Word Find
Papel Picado and Paper Marigold how-tos
Build Your Own Ofrenda paper press-outs
…y mucho más!
The Giveaway
The author has generously offered to give away one copy of his Day of the Dead Activity book to TWO SpanglishBaby amigos. To enter for your chance to win, just tell us what aspect of the Día de Muertos celebration you enjoy the most. Make sure you enter via the Rafflecopter below.
I Enjoy Creating Calavera Masks With My Family!
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I’ve been talking to my Spanish students a little bit about Dia de los muertos and would love a book that helped teach it better!
Remembering our ancestors and where we came from. Decorating sugar skulls!
I like sharing the altars with my students. They are currently making shoe box altars.
I love el Día de Los Muertos! My fave holiday to celebrate with students because it allows them to view death in a different way than what they have been used to. And the crafts- papel picado, calaveras, and calacas, and mascaras are so much fun to make!!
We love the parades.
I love teaching my Chiquita about her ancestors.
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I love taking a little time to honor our loved ones who have passed. It leads to great conversations with my daughters about their ancestors and my husband’s and my childhoods.
We enjoy making altars and sugar skulls.
I’m a subscriber.
I love building an altar with my kids.
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My favorite part is passing the tradition on to my daughter.
This would be a wonderful addition to our book collection at home. We are really diving into Dia de los Muertos this year and are always looking for resources. The kids have loved making artwork!
Already a SpanglishBaby subscriber
This looks so great! I’ve been compiling all of this on my own, and this would be such a useful way to have it all together! Gracias!
Looks great — I love subscribing to this!
My children’s grandfather passed less than a month ago and given that the whole family is in mourning, this year is a particularly important year to celebrate. Thus, I am looking for ideas to help them cope. I tried to download the 9 pager mentioend on FB, but never received anything. Figure, it won’t hurt to enter and would be AWESOME if we win.
Visit to the cemetry is the most memorable and significant activity I grew up with, and now hope to teach our kids.
already a subscriber.
What a cute book! I would love this!
I love remembering our loved ones that have passed on and honoring them so that my kids can continue to carry them in their hearts and never forget.
I love setting up the altar the most! It brings back so many memories of our loved ones!
I love the sugar skulls y el pan de muerto. I am an email subscriber.
I have tried desperately to find sugar skulls in our area. Guess it’s time to give up and make my own!
My favorite aspect of teaching El Dia de los Muertos in a Dual Language classroom, is watching the holiday take on meaning for my 5 year old students. Before I start teaching, even the Latino students have not explicitly interpreted the meaning and significance of this day, or the rituals or practices associated with it. Soon enough however, they are making dancing calacas, painting calaveras, and building their shoebox altars (Thanks Spanglishbaby for the instructions!). It is great to watch them not just countdown to Halloween, but also the day AFTER, when they can put on their calavera masks, do our calaca parade, and enjoy hot chocolate and pan de muerto. I know, that for the rest of their life, as citizens of Los Angeles, they will forever have a point of reference for this day. That’s a big deal!
Our favorite part is remembering our loved one that has passed on. We made masks this year and will be setting up a shrine.
Here in Tucson AZ we have an amazing and massive “Dia de los Muertos” parade that is all put on by volunteers, the city itself is not involved. People dress up, many attaching photos of their deceased loved ones, paint their faces like calaveras, carry home-made altars and shrines, push and drag large decorated floats and marionettes, play music and stream down the street by the hundreds. A huge urn with a whole in the side is also carried, into which parade participants can insert notes and at the end this urn is lifted up on a crane in a big dirt lot and the notes are burned to send the messages to heaven. I would love to win this book to help kids connect more with what our celebration is all about and where it comes from.
Remembering loved ones who have passed on.
My kids would love this book!! We’ve been busy doing Dia de Los Muertos crafts and the kids are loving it!
Remembering the loved ones who have joined the ancestors by arranging items they loved around photographs and remembrances of their days on this earth.
My fave part of Dia de Los Muertos is crafting with my multi-cultural and bilingual library patrons of all ages in West Marin. We prepare a variety of crafts that will then be placed on the community made altar and/or taken home for the family ofrenda. Dia de Los Muertos craft day in this library is a totally happenin’ event!
I would love this for my little one!
My favorite thing is making sugar skulls. This year we’re doing it with my son’s 5th grade class.
I subscribe via e-mail.
We love decorating sugar skulls
Looking forward to teaching kinder and preschoolers about El Dia de los Muertos for the first time this year!
Love the decorations and the beautiful altars
I like having a picnic in the cemetary and making the altars. A great way to remember past loved ones.
My favorite part is sharing my husbands culture with our son.
I love going to visit my grandfather at the cementary and leaving some of his favorite treats! we decorate a little too
Our babies are 1 & 3, we are looking forward to using this day as another opportunity to teach them more about our culture and traditions. I personally love the vibrant flowers that are common to this day.
I honestly can’t say a favorite part yet as we have just learned of it through our online Spanish class. I have 6 home-schooled children and this would be a great addition to enhance our learning of Spanish and the culture. Thanks so much for the giveaway!
My family is not from a culture that celebrates Day of the Dead, but my children’s school always has them do some Day of the Dead-inspired art, which I love, and I really love all the folk art that I see that goes with the holiday. I was just telling my sister that earlier today!
I love the opportunity that Dia de los Muertos provides our family. It creates a celebratory time and space to share the lives and history of loved ones that are no longer physically with us.
I love the remembrance of family, all the love involved the most
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Making altars to honor loved ones is really satisfying, but making sugar skulls is just plain fun. It’s the mix of spiritual and fun that make the celebration special to me.
I am a subscriber!
I am a native speaker from Chile and I teach Spanish to Lower School kids. This is by far my favorite holiday to teach about. We love coloring calaverita masks, creating an altar, reading books and watching videos about it! I’d love to ad this book to my classroom collection! Gracias
I got a late start in planning our introduction to Day of the Dead. So glad to have found this post!
Remembering loved ones who have passed away!
We love attending this event in San Francisco http://www.dayofthedeadsf.org/
I love making sugar skulls and papel picado and creating un altar in our home – this is the first year my daughter has been able to take part in these activities and I our activities as she grows.m very excited to expand
I’m a teacher and all my students know about Halloween, but only a few know the significance and history of Dia de los Muertos. This would be a great resource for my classroom!
The thing I enjoy the most is the aspect of tradition, and how important it is to keep passing it on through the generations.
I love sugar skulls!
I subscribed!
UPS delivered my book today and it is just wonderful
Also included was a copy of The Dead Family Diaz which was a fabulous surprise. Thank you so much!
Oh, so glad you got it right on time..and with an extra treat to boot! We do love this book and are so happy you got to enjoy it too.
I quite like reading through a post that can make people think.
Also, thank you for allowing for me to comment!
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