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A beautiful Day of the Dead craft for kids to make and learn about the Mexican Dia de los Muertos traditions.

Day of the Dead or Dia de los Muertos is a Mexican holiday when people remember friends and family members who have died.

This celebration is becoming more and more popular here in the US. I see bright, colorful sugar skull decorations popping up everywhere in stores.

Let’s make our own Day of the Dead puppet by using the paper puppet template I created for my readers.

I become familiar with this Mexican celebration of life and death only a few years ago, after moving to the States.

I would love some day to be able to witness a Day of the Dead celebration. And If I can’t make it to Mexico, at least go to one here, closer to us.

I want to expose my kids to different cultures and traditions.

We do this through books, food, entertainment and travels.

We also have a rather large group of international friends and this gives us a great opportunity to talk about countries from different corners of the world, from Switzerland to Indonesia.

I hope this way, my boys grow up to value diversity and appreciate even more our own Romanian culture as well as others.

The Day of the Dead holiday is a fun way to expose kids to the Mexican culture. They can watch the movie Coco and then try their hand at some colorful Sugar Skull crafts.

Our Day of the Dead craft comes with a paper skeleton template that is easy to use and great for home as well as classroom crafting.

If you celebrate Dia de los Muertos and are looking for skeleton puppets to make with your kids, our skull puppet is made entirely from paper.

I tried to keep the craft as simple as possible for kids as young as preschoolers and kindergartners. For instance, all the skull details (except for the heart) are printed directly on the skull and need no scissor cutting.

Our Day of the Dead template leaves room to creativity, when it comes to picking out the colors for the flowers and skull heart. Go for your favorite colors or chose the same colors we did.

RELATED: Check out these beautiful painted Day of the Dead pumpkins you can make yourself.

If you think the bones would be too much cutting for your little one, then take a look at this sugar skull craft. It has big patterns and leaves room to a lot of creativity.

Day of the Dead Craft

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Supplies:

• Day of the Dead template
• Black cardstock paper
• Construction paper: white, red and other colors of your choice
• Scissors
• Glue

How to Make the Dia de los Muertos Craft

This craft comes with two template options:

1. Print directly on colored paper
2. Cut patterns and trace them on colored paper
3. Coloring page : skeleton with flowers
4. Coloring page: skeleton and flowers printed separately for easy cut

To make  the Day of the Dead puppet you will need 1 black body, 1 skull, 1 skull heart, several flowers, 1 white spine, 4 white ribs, 2 white arm bones, 2 white leg bones and 1 red heart.

Start by gluing skull onto the black body.

Add the skull heart above the nose.

Glue the spine under the skull and all four ribs on top of the spine, starting with the smallest at the bottom of the spine.

Add the pelvis at the bottom of the spine.

Glue the red heart on top of the ribcage.

Glue the arm bones and leg bones.

Add the flowers on top of the skull.

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