2021 update:
It’s been four years since Level D launched, and four years since this blog post originally went live. Since then, thousands of people have viewed this post, making it one of our most popular resources to date!

In Level D, children meet Ofelia la oveja blanca (the white sheep) and her friends. Some they may already know, like Pepe and Raúl.  Others are new: a sort of clumsy, always-hungry cerdo named César, and a mother-daughter monarch butterfly team named Mía and Maite.  These mariposas monarcas give us the opportunity to help children explore the amazing monarch migration. It ends in the region of Ofelia’s farm every year around the same time as another important event in Mexico: Día de Muertos.

– Follow us on Twitter –

A hundred million butterflies who have never been to Mexico and will never return, fluttering across the sky around the same time as Día de Muertos?!  We had to have this show up in our Stories.

Introduce a child you love to a lifelong journey of speaking real Spanish to real people. Click the red button to experience it FREE.

Sign up for FREE

Our graphic artist Iuliia created these Día de Muertos finger puppets for everyone to enjoy. Subscribers can find them in the resources section in the Stories platform. If you are not a subscriber, keep scrolling to download them as an exclusive $1 deal on Teacher’s Pay Teachers.

– Like Calico Spanish on Facebook –

If you haven’t tried Stories yet, you can meet the whole gang of amigos with zero obligation. Just click here to explore the first full lesson. If you love what you see, you can explore eight units for seven days in our full free trial – no credit card, no obligation, just a chance to try the program with a child you love.

Pedro, Ofelia, Raúl, and the others teach children real-world Spanish through comprehensible, contextualized Video Stories.  With each unit built on a single Video Story, we provide step-by-step lesson plans, flash cards, Activity Sheets, Storybooks, posters, and more.  Here’s a visual introduction for you:

– Follow us on Instagram too! –

Now, about those finger puppets! Click the image to grab our exclusive $1 deal on TPT!

But wait – there’s more Día de Muertos!

For those of you who aren’t subscribers (yet!) but want to access more of our great resources, we offer a full Día de Muertos bundle in our TeachersPayTeachers store.

This power-packed five-lesson unit includes:

• Standards-based objectives for Novice Mid to Novice High Spanish learners:
  I can introduce a friend to another friend.
  I can say whether something is near or far, north or south.
  I can identify several cultural products related to the Mexican celebration Día de Muertos.
• Lesson plan ideas for five days of lessons + extension ideas
• 26 proficiency-boosting vocabulary words and phrases with color flash cards every learner can cut, fold, and use
• Transcript and exclusive link for a fun Video Story incorporating target words and phrases: Ofelia the white sheep has some friends visiting just in time to accompany her to visit her grandfather’s tumba in the nearby cemetery for Día de Muertos. What will the altar tell them about her grandfather’s life?
• Four cut-and-assemble finger puppets in the Día de Muertos style.
• Activity Sheet “¿Dónde está?” : Learners use a map of North America to identify which cities are close to or far from each other, as well as which are in the north and which are in the south.
• Activity “Order the Quotes” : Learners put the quotes in order to show comprehension of the Video Story.
• Full 6-page Día de Muertos Culture Capsule to explore the celebration and ending with standards-based Spanish-language assessment : Learners label items on an altar and say in Spanish why each item is included in the person’s ofrenda

This entire resource is just $8 – or you can purchase just the Culture Capsule to explore this important part of Mexico’s cultural heritage.

Enjoy the journey!