This Día de los Muertos activity pairs a sugar skull art project with a Blockly coding challenge for students in grades 1 to 5. Students decorate a calavera mask that lets Dash’s eye shine through, then work through task cards to program a celebration of lights, sounds, movement, and eye patterns. The activity takes 45 to 60 minutes and works with the Blockly app or Blockly Web.
Día de los Muertos, observed each year on November 1 and 2, is a Mexican celebration in which families remember and honor loved ones who have passed away. Sugar skulls and bright orange marigolds, called cempasúchil, are two of its best-known symbols. The activity presents both as joyful ways to celebrate life, giving students a meaningful cultural connection alongside their coding practice.
The download includes five pages:
- Introduction and steps: a short introduction to the holiday and steps for making Dash’s calavera.
- Sugar skull cut-out: a calavera to color, with an opening for Dash’s eye and side tabs for attaching it.
- Task cards: four cut-apart cards that build from sequencing to loops, movement, and eye patterns. Each card names the blocks students will use and gives a clear success check, so students plan their own programs rather than copy a finished one.
- More task cards: a Meet Dash’s Eye reference card, a bonus challenge for recording a custom greeting, and a Grand Finale in which students design their own show.
- Teacher answer key: a sample solution for each level, notes on what to look for, and a materials list.
Download the activity
Print the pages at actual size so the sugar skull and task cards cut out at the right scale.
Keep the celebration going
When groups finish the task cards, invite them to run their light shows for the class and explain the choices in their programs. Asking how many 90° turns bring Dash back to face the group, or what changes when Repeat runs five times instead of three, is a quick way to check their understanding of loops.
Students who finish early can extend Level 2 by adding an All Lights block set to black at the end of the loop, which turns Dash’s lights off between color cycles. They can also design a longer show with the other colors in the All Lights block: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and white.
The activity also opens a natural conversation about how families and communities remember the people they love. Inviting students to share traditions from their own families connects the coding lesson to their lives outside school.
We would love to see your students’ calaveras and light shows. Share photos and videos with Wonder Workshop on social media!
