Dia de los Muertos Celebration

  |||   Reverence is in the air at Berkeley Rose Waldorf School! This is the time of year that we honor and celebrate our ancestors and loved ones that have passed. Our children, from kindergarten to 8th grade, experience reverence, appreciation for nature and life through the curriculum, but more importantly through shared festivals and holidays.

“El día de Los Muertos” is a meaningful holiday that we can appreciate, as it is a remembrance and celebration of the ones who have passed in our lives. In Mexico, el Día de Los Muertos is similar to a National Holiday, and people celebrate it throughout the country in various ways. El Día de Los Muertos brings the indigenous ways in Mexico and connects to the catholic church as it occurs on the church calendar’s All Saints’ Day (November 1st) and All Souls’ Day (November 2nd). It is also celebrated all over the Western and Southwestern United States, along with many other locations throughout the world.

Gr 5 decorate sugar skulls for the Dia de los Muertos altar

5th grade students decorate sugar skulls for the altar.

Gr 2 students deliver Pan de Muerto to the 7th grade

2nd grade students deliver Pan de Muerto to 7th grade.

This day offers an opportunity for us to build an altar to remember our dear ones who have passed. Building an altar of remembrance provides a way to acknowledge death, to talk about and to remember our passed loved ones. This is always done with beauty, reverence and respect. The altar includes water, the bread of the Dead (pan de Muerto), and food or things that the deceased used to like. The bright orange or yellow Marigold flowers, cempasuchil, or “flor de muerto,” are believed to attract the deceased’s soul to the altar to witness that they are still loved and remembered.

At school, children created decorations, baked bread, brought in photos, and helped build the altar. Students from Kindergarten through 8th grade took turns visiting the altar with song and quiet remembrance. Enjoy a snippet of the Kindergarten children who sang together “Oratorio de Los Muertos” in circle time.