I should preface this by saying that I am not Mexican, so if I got something incorrect please do let me know and I will update it! I did research a lot, but my main experience with this holiday is through growing up in California and being around a lot of Mexican people. I love the decorations and spirit around this holiday, so I wanted to teach the students about it as well. They did not have a lot of knowledge about Mexican culture.
Supplies:
Origami Paper (1 for each student)
String
Tape
I bought all of these at Daiso. The school actually helped purchase some supplies too.
I began this lesson with a warm up that is currently linked in the Canva. If you click the picture for Luigis Mansion it will link to the slideshow haunted house. It was inspired by katiegregory's haunted house activity (https://altopedia.net/activities/2234-haunted-house-choose-your-own-adventure) but reworked to be Luigi's Mansion themed.
We did Two Truths and a Lie together as a class. The 3rd round has a lie that says, "Day of the Dead is Mexico's version of Halloween." That led us into what makes it its own holiday, relating it to Obon, etc. The English is probably a bit complex, my JTEs translated quite a lot. I gave the slides to them beforehand to prepare them just in case. After showing them papel picado, we passed out origami paper sheets to each student and made our own! I turned on a playlist from Coco and we folded and cut our paper. I had a line in the back where I was taping all their sheets to the string and most of the classes still have theirs hung up on the back wall. I also had a crossword puzzle available based on the previous week's Halloween lesson and the things we learned today. I will go ahead and include here so you can see the example, but it has some more specific Halloween vocabulary they might not know about the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, etc. I did not pressure them too hard to finish since it was mostly just to keep them busy with something while the rest of the students were still cutting paper or helping me tape.
Two Truths and a Lie
https://www.canva.com/design/DAGUcNq_8Wk/f4UIy-MyVj44CUe-iabDVA/view?utm_content=DAGUcNq_8Wk&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=uniquelinks&utlId=h559c7ba532
Presentation
https://www.canva.com/design/DAGSkTrg9po/2kRJGodwe_Qner_GOdcepg/view?utm_content=DAGSkTrg9po&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=uniquelinks&utlId=h42e80a9be4