by Randel McGee
Amazon Paperback: $7.15
Kindle: $6.59
Kindle: $6.59
Last year (after Día de los Muertos) I received a copy of this book for review. It has been waiting patiently the whole year for Day of the Dead to roll back around.
I have to say, that it is a fun book with eight activities inside. As you can see from the cover, some of the projects include making paper marigolds, a calavera mask, skeleton figures, as well as clothing for said figures, a skeleton candy basket (so cute!), papel cortado and Aztec animal decorations. Randel McGee is the author, and he does a good job describing how to make these little projects. The photographs that accompany some of the different steps are helpful. And he even included templates/patterns in the back. The only thing I don't like is that you're supposed to copy them enlarged by between 145% and 240% which I find difficult because I just have a simple copier/scanner/printer that doesn't enlarge. It wasn't too much of a big deal for us, though, because we didn't use the patterns anyway, but I wish books would simply provide patterns of the correct size so all I have to do is copy them.
Obviously, I can't share a full activity with you here (you'll have to purchase the book for that - or request it at your local library), but I do want to share with you one of the activities the kids and I did. They had tons of fun and it kept them busy for at least an hour. The book is best suited for kids 6 to 12, in my opinion.
We used the materials in the picture above, plus some tape and a few markers. (Notice I got my air-dry clay on sale at Target!) Take a look at our little calaca family...
