1. How many levels does the altar have to be? At least 3, and the floor can be considered a level.
2. Where should the altar be? It should be in a public location, not in a room so that all children, teachers & families may see it so that it is a community event.
3. Is it one altar per school or multiple? It is one altar per school and we recommend that it be viewed as a cultural community event.
4. How do you represent Fire, Water, Earth, Wind? Fire: Candles (Battery operated or paper made) for safety reasons. Water: Cup of Water Earth: Small Container of Salt, flowers, etc.. Wind: Papel Picado (the wind blows through it)
5. We can eliminate small mat from the list of required items for safety reasons since it may be in a hallway.
6. What about religious items? We recommend that you not allow religious items as part of an art project created at school. This project is a social studies & culture project. The PowerPoint / lessons provided focus on the Indigenous aspects of the celebration which originated over 3,000 years ago before the Spaniards and Catholicism arrived. In reality, what makes it a religious celebration today is primarily that the Spaniards changed the date of the celebration to coincide with all soul's day and all saint's day and introduced the cross into the altar.
Nevertheless, the primary purpose is the following:
a. Día de los Muertos is a Celebration of Life! It is not a spooky holiday, nor morbid that celebrates death which is wide misconception. b. Understand that it is an ancient Indigenous celebration of the Aztecs and Mayan people of Mexico that began over 3,000 years ago and continues today. c. It is not the same as Halloween & is very different. *This is explained in some of the powerpoint.
I also mentioned an excellent introduction to this for the kids is a recent episode of Elena of Avalor "Dia de los Muertos" that helps see the positive, happy, & celebratory side of the celebration. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB6VhoWlsEU or of course the great movie "Coco"