Celebrating Life on the 4th Floor!

Our 4th Floor ofrenda

A traditional ofrenda for Dia de los Muertos

In October, middle school students learned about the Mexican holiday, Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. Students discovered that the holiday that is celebrated on November 1st and 2nd has nothing to do with our American celebration of Halloween. Unlike the dark holiday of Halloween, Dia de los Muertos is a celebration of life. This holiday is celebrated in various ways in different areas of Mexico, but is focused on celebrating the lives of deceased family members. One way that family members and friends are memorialized is through an 'ofrenda' or alter with pictures of the person and a few of their favorite things from life.

In art class, middle school students created decorative artwork traditionally used in the celebration. Students created sugar skulls, 'papel picado' or paper banners, and brought in pictures of their own lost loved ones to contribute to our traditional ofrenda.

Below you can see the process of putting the sugar in the skull molds and popping them out. The skulls had to harden overnight before students could decorate them.

After the skulls had hardened, they were ready to decorate. We viewed traditional sugar skull decoration designs before designing our own skulls.

Students also designed cut paper banners or papel picado to decorate the ofrenda and fulfill the 'wind' requirement for the 4 elements of life that must be included in an ofrenda. The four elements of life are earth, wind, water, and fire.

A small group of students were selected to visit the National Museum of Mexican Art in the Pilsen neighborhood to view an exhibit that featured ofrendas. They then shared their knowledge with the rest of their classmates when they returned to class.

Middle school students also helped to share the meaning of the ofrenda with younger students at NTA. Many classes joined us on the 4th floor to learn about our artwork and Dia de los Muertos. Our younger NTA students were fantastic audience members for our middle school guides !