This theme for storytime was definitely more tough since there aren't a lot of good Day of the Dead stories in English, but between inter-library loaning and using bilingual books we made this theme work. This subject is perfect for our Spanish storytimes, but a bit challenging for our English ones since we wanted to emphasize the culture of the celebration and not the religious aspect of it. Granted, we took upon the challenge and succeeded.
I ended up turning this storytime into a Day of the Dead/Dia de los Muertos/skeleton theme. Without most of the skeleton stories, the books to choose from would have been slim and I was trying to vary this as much as I could from the previous Halloween storytime.
To explain Day of the Dead, we read The Day of the Dead by Bob Barner. I went straight into my next story since I felt that book was more of an introduction. Bonaparte Falls Apart by Margery Cuyler was a cute story, but perhaps a little too long for my group. I quickly did a movement activity with a "Dem Bones" song and read Skeleton Hiccups by the same author and Skelly & Femur by Jimmy Pickering.
The kids absolutely loved the Skeleton Hiccups book because of all the hiccuping and liked the illustrations of Femur in Pickering's book.
For another activity mixed in, I handed out different skeleton bones and had each of the kids bring their bone up and putting it in the "magic" envelope. Once all the bones were in, we shouted "abracadabra" and the skeleton's bones were magically put together. The kids thought this was fun and they liked saying the magic word.
As a craft, we made sugar skulls out of card stock, heart stickers (upside down for their noses), and crayons and markers. They really enjoyed the craft and had a good time making it their own.
Other books:
Halloween Hustle by Charlotte Gunnufson
Day of the Dead by Amanda Doering
Disney's Coco: Miguel's Music
It's Skeleton Time! by Ana Galan
Clatter Bash! A Day of the Dead Celebration by Richard Keep
One of the best drop-in craft programs is centered around Halloween. There are so many good crafts to choose from, whether it be making ghosts, witches, Frankensteins, or jack-o-lanterns.
For this year's Drop-In and Get Crafty: Halloween, we made an assortment of masks. Everyone could choose from making a cat, pumpkin, Frankenstein, or Day of the Dead mask.
The masks were made using card stock and Popsicle sticks. I opted out of using elastic bands because I was trying to keep my cost low for a program that tends to have a larger turnout. We had a numerous amount of sticks so it was perfect. I used a hole puncher to make the eye cut-outs.
Markers, colored pencils, and of course crayons were put out to decorate masks. I also put out some sequins they could glue on to their masks.
I liked this craft idea because it gave attendees options to choose their mask and how to decorate it. I also needed a relatively easy prep craft and this was perfect. The craft also fits all ages because younger kids can decorate their masks simple and older kids can add as much detail as they want. I also liked how this craft can be their costume for Trick-or-Treating if they wanted it to be.
I had a great turn-out for this program and it was nice to see families crafting together.
Happy Halloween!
