October 17, 2010

Finding Dia de los Muertos




During our discussion of Dia de los Muertos I lamented that I had never been to Mexico and I learned everything I knew from pictures, books and the internet. One student's hand shot up. "I'm from Mexico and my family celebrates Dia de los Muertos." She talked about how her family celebrates the holiday and traditions passed down from her mother. She offered to bring in sugar skulls and papel picado to show her classmates. It was so great to be the one asking questions! She was my little teacher. But still . . . something was missing. I wanted to see, hear and experience the rich culture she was talking about. I wanted to see all of this in action! So I did the best I could do short of buying my plane ticket. . . I went on Youtube! This was actually the long uncut version of a British Airways commercial. Maybe I will buy that ticket one day! The lighting and selective focus in this film has kept me watching it over and over.  This movie is so beautiful I have to share it with you and, of course, my students next week.

Looking at visuals is always a very rich experience for other lessons, but for Dia de los Muertos, knowing the people is knowing the culture and art. The sound and movement help make the tradition come alive. I hope you enjoy this peek into the days as much as I did!


Also. . .
I also am proud that I figured out how to share it on a DVD so I can show it at school. Youtube is not allowed on our computers. If you are interested leave me a comment but you probably already know!

4 comments:

Kristin Dudish said...

How wonderful that you have a student with first hand knowledge of Dia de Los Muertos! (It's so great she is willing to share & that she can teach all of you)

The video is fabulous too... what a great supplement to your teaching :)

Janie B said...

What an awesome video. We have to get special permission to show anything from Youtube at our school, too. This is a good one.

Mrs. Hahn said...

Thanks a ton for the YouTube! I'm finishing up right now with the Day of the Dead lesson and can really use it! Also, if you use firefox, you can go to 'add ons for firefox' and video download helper...

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?q=video&cat=all&lver=any&pid=1&sort=&pp=20&lup=&advanced=

You can install that onto your firefox and this allows you to grab videos off the internet easily. It also lets you download with out commercials and in many formats. I learned it because it works converts to .flv and that is what works for Notebook (smartboard software).

Just another way to grab video.

Barbara's Thought of the Day said...

That is awesome. Thanks for the post. And thanks Mrs. Hahn for the tutorial on how to grab video from YouTube.