October Outing: Sugar Skulls @ the Nevada Museum of Art!

Our theme for October was "All Kinds of Art" and so we took a trip to the Nevada Museum of Art to take part in their hands/ON! program for our monthly outing.  Hands/ON! is a free art program for kids that takes place the last Sunday of each month.  This month's project was making sugar skulls in honor of the Mexican Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos, which is celebrated to remember deceased loved ones.  Dia de los Muertos falls on November 2nd each year.

Traditions connected with the holiday include building private altars honoring the deceased using sugar skulls, marigolds, and the favorite foods and beverages of the departed and visiting graves with these as gifts (thanks Wikipedia!).  Here's a picture of sugar skulls:

And now back to the Cadets!

We got to the museum early to get places, which was a good thing because it was packed!  We let the kids play outside for a while to burn off energy!

After that we got into line and then headed over to the classroom to learn about Dia de los Muertos and to make the sugar skulls.

The sugar skulls were pre-made with sugar and glue (and not edible, much to the disappointment of the kids!!).  The Cadets got to decorate them however they wanted using frosting, jewels, and colored foil.

One of the coolest things about some of our Cadet outings is discovering things in our own community that we didn't know about before.  The hands/ON! program is a great example of that, and I know a lot of our families will be returning again to take part in more of their events.  Thanks to the Nevada Museum of Art for having such a great program that exposed kids to art and culture for free!