How to Make a Clay Calavera
Día de Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is an important holiday honored in many Mexican and Mexican American communities.
Families use this time to remember loved ones with special art and meaningful symbols. A calavera is a decorative skull shape often used in these traditions.
In this classroom project, you can make your own flat clay calavera plaque.
Materials:
- Small ball of air-drying clay
- Square piece of scrap cardboard
- Craft stick with rounded ends
- Colorful markers chosen by an adult for dry clay
Steps:
- Roll your piece of clay into a smooth ball with your hands.
Place the clay ball in the center of your cardboard square.
- Press down on the ball with your flat palm.
Shape it into a flat oval that is about as thick as a cookie.
- Gently pinch the bottom sides of the oval with your fingers.
This makes a narrower lower jaw and chin.
- Use the rounded end of your craft stick to press two shallow circles for eyes.
Press a small triangle for the nose and short lines across the jaw for teeth.
- Leave your clay plaque on the cardboard to dry completely.
Ask an adult to check the clay package with you, as drying can take a day or more.
- symbols:
- Pictures, shapes, or objects that stand for ideas or feelings.
- traditions:
- Special customs or activities that families or groups share over time.
- plaque:
- A flat piece of art made to display or hang up.
- oval:
- A shape like an egg or a stretched circle.
- shallow:
- Not deep; close to the surface.
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Preview questions from this passageShowHide
- 1What holiday is celebrated when families make art like calaveras?
- 2What is a calavera?
About this how-to / procedural passage for Lower Elementary
“How to Make a Clay Calavera” is a how-to / procedural reading passage about Clay Calavera, written for Lower Elementary. It takes about 2 minutes to read (241 words) and comes with an interactive quiz and a printable worksheet with comprehension questions and an answer key.