Art and Spanish 1 students got the opportunity to experience Spanish culture together, celebrating Dia de los Muertos, better known as Day of the Dead, through the collaboration of art teacher Cindy Mullen and Spanish teacher Kirby Kenny.

“Last year Mrs. Kenny and I were wanting to do a project with our classes together,” Mullen said. “We are the junior class sponsors together, so we had wanted to do some kind of craft project with our classes; we had even talked about doing piñatas.”

The art students built an ofrenda, or altar, and talked about how and what each part of the ofrenda represented.

“Making the tissue flowers were my favorite part since it was hard and took a lot of time,” junior Marcus Smith said.

The altar included candles, food and paper flowers that the dead person had liked while alive.

Frida Kahlo was the Hispanic woman the students chose to make the ofrenda for, to honor her for her famous paintings. Junior Chloe Henderson dressed up as Kahlo and gave a speech over her life and achievements.

“I learned what The Day of the Dead actually meant, since I didn’t even know what it was,” junior Tabitha Stuhlsatz said.

The art and Spanish students both learned new things through this collaboration, from Hispanic culture to famous Hispanic people.

“The students got to see another culture and how the Hispanic artist expressed themselves through the arts,” Mrs. Mullen said.

Art students build an ofrenda for Frida Kahlo to honor her artwork. Dia de los Muertos, better known as Day of the Dead, was celebrated by art and Spanish 1 students on Oct. 29.