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Hispanic Heritage Month YJAM Art Collective

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YJAM Art Collective The 2026 guide: theme, six prompts, and how to submit. Student art due Oct 2 Hispanic Heritage Month Five classroom activities, six artworks, and papel picado templates. Sept 15 to Oct 15

YJAM Art Collective

Due Friday, October 2

October is Youth Justice Action Month, and we're gathering student work now for the Art Collective. The 2026 theme is Building a Future Where Youth Thrive. Students are invited to work in any medium: drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, 3D printing, or something we haven't thought of.

Every piece goes into a national digital gallery that runs all October, where educators and community members leave written feedback on the work. Student art is due Friday, October 2.

Our guide walks you through how to get your students involved, including the theme, six prompts to spark ideas, and the registration and submission links.

Download the 2026 YJAM Art Collective guide
Cover of the 2026 YJAM Art Collective guide

Hispanic Heritage Month

September 15 to October 15

UNIDOS, SOMOS MÁSTogether, We Are More.

The 2026 theme is UNIDOS, SOMOS MÁS: Together, We Are More. Five short activities for your classroom. Each one runs in 30 minutes or less, with its own one-page handout or just blank paper.

What Makes You Say That? Exploring ArtStart here15–25 min More Than One Story20–30 min What Connects Us?20–25 min Different Angles: People, Places & Experiences15–25 min What Would You Pass On?15–20 min Papel Picado TemplatesPrint and color

Activity 1 · Start here

What Makes You Say That? Exploring Art

Time: 15–25 minutesMaterials: What Makes You Say That? handout or blank paper, pencil

Connection to Hispanic Heritage Month: Art can tell stories about identity, history, place, community, and culture. This activity introduces students to the work of a Hispanic or Latino artist while encouraging them to look closely and support their interpretations with evidence.

  1. Tell students:

    Say

    Art can tell us a lot about people, places, cultures, and experiences. Before we learn anything about this piece, take some time to look closely and decide what you think it might be communicating.

  2. Show students this artwork. Do not show the full printed sheet yet.

  3. Give students about 90 seconds to silently observe the artwork.

  4. Ask students to respond to at least one prompt:

    • What do you think is happening in this artwork?
    • What story might this artwork be telling?
    • What feeling or message do you think the artist is communicating?

  5. Ask students to share their answers aloud. Follow every answer with: What makes you say that? Students should identify something they can actually see (such as a color, shape, expression, object, symbol, or position) as evidence.

  6. Now reveal the background:

    Read aloud: the background

    This is probably the most recognized image in Mexican art. Almost everyone has seen a version of her. The artist was José Guadalupe Posada (1852–1913).

    Here is what we know for certain. Posada engraved her around 1910. He died in January 1913. This sheet went out on the street roughly ten months after his death, for Day of the Dead, printed by Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, who had published his work for years.

    Here is what we do not know: what Posada meant by her. He left no title and no explanation. That was normal for him. He handed finished engravings to his publisher, and the publisher hired writers to add the headline and the verses. This same engraving was printed again years later with completely different words around it.

    So the words on this sheet are not his. They say that women who are powdered garbanceras today will end up as misshapen skeletons. Garbancera was an insult. The usual explanation is that it meant someone of Indigenous descent who sold garbanzos instead of corn and dressed European to seem wealthier, denying where they came from. Others connect it to garbanzo flour, which women used as face powder to look paler.

    The name everybody knows her by came later still. Catrina, from catrín, a word for a man dressed up in fine clothes, first appears in print in 1930, seventeen years after Posada died. The painter Diego Rivera later put her in a mural full-length, in a long dress and a feather boa, and that is the version most people picture.

    What we can see is the joke the picture makes on its own, without anybody's caption. The hat is enormous. Ostrich plumes, flowers, a lace brim. And below the hat there is nothing to dress at all. A skull, a collarbone, a few ribs. Whatever gets put on top, she is a calavera underneath, and so is everyone.

    A picture with no title. Verses written by someone else after the artist was dead. A name added seventeen years later. A body added by a different painter. She belongs to Mexico now far more than she ever belonged to Posada.

  7. Then show the full printed sheet and ask: What is the picture doing that the words are not? Who was this sheet made for?

  8. Ask: What do you see differently now that you know more about the artist and the artwork? Have students share their responses aloud.

  9. Then ask: What can we say the artist did, and what has been said about him since? Almost everything people "know" about this picture was added to it by other people after he died.

Teacher note: run this again. Once students have done this once they know the routine, and it becomes a five-minute opener for the rest of the month. Put a new artwork up with no title and no information. Students write, in a sentence or two, what they think is happening and what makes them say that. Two or three share. Read the background aloud. Ask what changed. Five more works are ready to run the same way, each with its background written out, from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Peru and Guatemala, spanning about fourteen hundred years.

Adapted from Project Zero's Visible Thinking routines, Harvard Graduate School of Education.

One-page handout (PDF)Download the handout
A skeleton wearing an enormous hat piled with ostrich plumes and flowers, with a lace brim.
Show first · click to show full-screen
José Guadalupe Posada, from the broadside Remate de calaveras alegres y sandungueras, printed by Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, Mexico, 1913. Public domain.
The full 1913 printed sheet, with the Catrina engraving surrounded by a Spanish headline and verses.
Show after the reveal
The full printed sheet, 1913.

Five more works to run it with

For each one, put up the first image with no title and no information, run the routine, then read the background aloud.

Click any image to show it full-screen, without the text around it.

A carved stone panel showing a seated figure in a huge feathered headdress on a throne, other figures facing him, and blocks of small square symbols above.

Relief with Enthroned Ruler

Maya artist, Guatemala · 770 CE · limestone with paint · about 3 feet square · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979.206.1047 · public domain

Read aloud: the background

This stone panel was carved by a Maya sculptor in the early 770s for the doorway of a temple at La Pasadita, a small hilltop town in what is now Guatemala. It was set overhead, so visitors had to look up to see it. It still has some of its original red, yellow, and blue-green paint.

The square blocks are writing, and scholars can read most of it. It names the people in the scene. The man on the throne is the king of Yaxchilan, the powerful city across the river. The writing calls him Chel Te' Chan K'inich, the name he had before he took the royal name Shield Jaguar. The man holding out a feathered headdress to him is Tiloom, the lord of La Pasadita. His title is sajal: a local governor who served the king. Under the throne sits a bowl of fruit, part of what Tiloom brought.

The sculptor signed it, too. His name was Chakalte'. For the Maya, a carving like this was a public record of who ruled, who was loyal, and who made it.

Worth noting for students: the writing was unreadable for centuries. It was decoded mostly in the last seventy years, and Maya people still live in Guatemala and Mexico today.

A man in a bright red coat with lace at the throat and powdered hair, painted as if sitting inside a window frame.

Portrait of Nicolás Matías Fernández Méndez

José Campeche (Puerto Rican, 1751–1809) · ca. 1800 · oil on wood panel · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2025.243 · public domain

Read aloud: the background

This small portrait was painted in San Juan, Puerto Rico, around 1800, by José Campeche, the leading painter on the island in his lifetime.

Campeche was Afro-Puerto Rican. His father, Tomás, was born into slavery, bought his own freedom, and made his living painting and repairing religious statues. That is where José learned. His mother's family came from the Canary Islands, off the coast of Africa. He had no formal art school; he studied prints of European paintings and learned from a Spanish court painter who spent three years in San Juan.

The man in the red coat is Nicolás Matías Fernández Méndez, a merchant and city official who was born in the Canary Islands. His trade reached across the Atlantic and around the Caribbean, to Venezuela and Mexico.

Put the painter and the sitter side by side and you have Puerto Rico in 1800: an island where Africa, Spain, and the Caribbean met, and where the most sought-after artist was the son of a man who had been enslaved.

Ask after the reveal: whose picture is this, the man who sat for it or the man who made it?

A crowd of people in hats and shawls, seen from behind, arms raised toward a city skyline of domes and bell towers.
Show first
The full printed sheet, with the crowd engraving under a Spanish headline about Halley's Comet.
Show after the reveal

El Gran Cometa Halley (The Great Halley's Comet)

José Guadalupe Posada (Mexican, 1852–1913) · 1899, published 1910 · relief engraving on zinc · Art Institute of Chicago, 1943.1254 · public domain

Show students the crowd image only. The headline on the full sheet gives the answer away.

Read aloud: the background

This is by José Guadalupe Posada, the same artist who made La Catrina. It comes from a single printed sheet about Halley's Comet, which passed close to Earth in 1910. People around the world were frightened of it. Newspapers reported that the comet's tail held poison gas and that the world might end.

Sheets like this were part of everyday life in Mexico City. They were printed cheaply and sold on the street for a few centavos, full of news, songs, jokes, and prayers. That year Mexico's census found that roughly three out of four people in the country could not read, so the picture had to carry the story.

Look at what Posada put in it: a skyline of church domes and bell towers, and the whole city out in the street together. The sheet even ends with a prayer. The crowd is not running. They are watching.

Then show the full sheet and ask what the picture and the text are each doing.

If you ran Catrina first, ask students what the two pictures have in common. The answer is the audience. Both were made for people who could not buy a newspaper or read one.

A human head in clay, painted red and cream, wearing a headdress patterned with snakes, with a spout rising from the top.

Portrait Head Bottle

Moche artist, Peru · 5th–6th century CE · ceramic, slip, pigment · about 13 inches tall · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 64.228.21 · public domain

Read aloud: the background

This bottle was made about 1,500 years ago by a Moche potter on the north coast of Peru, long before the Inca. The Moche turned coastal desert into farmland and built huge temples out of mud brick. They had no system of writing. What they left instead is pottery, tens of thousands of pieces shaped like people, animals, and plants.

This one is a portrait of a real man. Moche portrait bottles show individual faces, with particular noses, scars, and expressions, and archaeologists have recognized the same person on different bottles at different ages.

Look at what he wears: a headband with four snakes facing each other, and face paint in stripes of red and cream. People who knew him would have known what those meant. Nobody has found his name. Without writing, his face is the record.

A figure in a gold and red gown under a canopy, surrounded by a landscape of a village, a church, mountains, market stalls, riders, and children swimming in a river.

Our Lady of Cocharcas

Unknown artist, Cuzco, Peru · 1759 · oil and gold on canvas · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019.14 · public domain

Read aloud: the background

This painting was made in Cuzco, high in the Andes mountains of Peru, in 1759. We don't know the painter's name. Most painters in Cuzco then were Indigenous and mestizo artists working in workshops, and they created a style of their own: gold patterns laid over the fabric, with local flowers and local mountains all around.

The figure in the center is not a living person. She is a small carved statue of the Virgin Mary that stands in the church of Cocharcas, a village in the Peruvian Andes. In 1598 an Indigenous man from Cocharcas named Sebastián Quimichi made the long journey to a famous shrine on Lake Titicaca and brought home this small copy of the statue. That original statue, still at Lake Titicaca today, had been carved by an Indigenous sculptor, Francisco Tito Yupanqui.

The tiny figures all around her are pilgrims: climbing the mountain roads, riding, camping, selling food, swimming in the river. Her festival is on September 8, and every year, more than four hundred years later, thousands of people still travel to Cocharcas from across central and southern Peru to see her.

A good pairing question: how many different things can you find people doing?

More for Hispanic Heritage Month

Four more activities, each with a one-page handout or blank paper, and papel picado templates to print and color.

Activity 2

More Than One Story

Time: 20–30 minutesMaterials: More Than One Story handout, or blank paper, pencil, image displayed

Hispanic and Latino communities represent many countries, histories, traditions, identities, and perspectives. This activity helps students consider how the same event, tradition, or experience may look different depending on who is telling the story.

One-page handout (PDF)Download the handout
Instructions

  1. Begin by telling students:

    Say

    The words Hispanic and Latino describe very large and diverse groups of people. People may share a language or aspects of history while having very different traditions, identities, experiences, and perspectives. Today we're going to look at one experience from several viewpoints rather than assuming there is only one way to understand it.

  2. Display these images at the front of the classroom (or search for Hispanic celebration images on Google).

    A Day of the Dead altar covered in marigolds, candles, framed photographs, food, and bright cut-paper banners.
    Photo by Roger Ce on Unsplash
    Dancers in full, brightly striped skirts spinning outdoors while a crowd watches.
    Photo by Mitchell Luo on Unsplash

  3. Tell students:

    Say

    Imagine a neighborhood is holding an annual cultural festival. There is live music, food prepared by local families and restaurants, dancing, artwork, activities for children, and people of different generations gathering together. Some people have attended the festival for years, while others are experiencing it for the first time.

  4. Assign or allow students to choose one perspective:

    • A teenager attending for the first time
    • A grandparent who has attended for decades
    • A musician performing at the festival
    • A visitor who knows very little about the community

  5. Using the More Than One Story handout, students respond from their person's perspective:

    • SEES: What might this person notice?
    • THINKS: What might be important to this person?
    • FEELS: How might this person feel? Why?

  6. Have students with different viewpoints share. Emphasize that there isn't necessarily one correct response; students should be able to explain why their response makes sense based on the perspective.

  7. Discuss:

    • What did one person notice that another might overlook?
    • How did the person's experiences affect their perspective?
    • What can we miss when we try to tell the story of an entire culture or community from only one perspective?

Adapted from Project Zero's Visible Thinking routines, Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Activity 3

What Connects Us?

Time: 20–25 minutesMaterials: What Connects Us handout or blank paper, pencils, and optional coloring supplies

This activity directly explores the 2026 theme "UNIDOS, SOMOS MÁS—Together, We Are More." Students identify parts of their own cultures and communities before discovering connections among the experiences, values, and traditions represented throughout the classroom.

One-page handout (PDF)Download the handout
Instructions

  1. Write UNIDOS, SOMOS MÁS—Together, We Are More on the board.

  2. Introduce the activity by saying:

    Say

    The 2026 Hispanic Heritage Month theme is UNIDOS, SOMOS MÁS, or Together, We Are More. Being united doesn't mean everyone has to be the same. Communities can include people with different experiences, traditions, languages, interests, and backgrounds. Today we're going to look for connections among some of the things that matter to us.

  3. Give each student one handout with three hexagons or ask them to draw three large hexagons on a piece of paper.

  4. Students put one idea, phrase, or drawing in each hexagon:

    • Something my family or community values
    • Something that brings people together
    • Something I would want to continue into the future

    If students need ideas, provide examples: music, food, language, storytelling, family gatherings, art, sports, celebrations, helping others, respect, humor, faith, perseverance, or traditions.

  5. Have students share their hexagons. Place related hexagons next to one another to begin creating a larger class design.

  6. Each time students suggest a connection, ask: Why do these belong together? For example, Sunday dinner and birthday celebrations could connect through family, while music and language could connect through expression.

  7. Once the display is complete, ask these reflection questions:

    • What connections surprised you?
    • What do you notice about our individual pieces now that they are together?
    • How does this represent "Together, We Are More"?

Activity 4

Different Angles: People, Places & Experiences

Time: 15–25 minutesMaterials: People, Places, Experiences handout or blank paper, pencil

The 2026 Hispanic Heritage Month theme, "UNIDOS, SOMOS MÁS—Together, We Are More," celebrates what becomes possible when different people, experiences, and perspectives come together. This activity invites students to think about what has shaped their own identity and what they contribute to a larger community.

One-page handout (PDF)Download the handout
Instructions

  1. Introduce the activity by saying:

    Say

    The 2026 Hispanic Heritage Month theme is UNIDOS, SOMOS MÁS, which means Together, We Are More. Hispanic Heritage Month recognizes the histories, cultures, experiences, and contributions of Hispanic and Latino people. The 2026 theme also gives us a chance to think about what each of us brings to the communities we are part of.

  2. Ask: What can a group create, accomplish, or become together that one person might not be able to do alone?

  3. Pass out the People, Places, Experiences handout. Explain that students will consider three different influences on who they are:

    • People: Someone who has shaped who I am
    • Places: A place or community that has influenced me
    • Experiences: Something I have experienced that taught me something important

    Students can respond using words, symbols, drawings, or a combination.

  4. Invite students to share one response they are comfortable sharing. Ask:

    • Did anyone hear something they connected with?
    • What differences did you notice?
    • How can both our similarities and differences make a community stronger?

  5. Finally, ask: What is one thing you bring to a community that makes it stronger? Examples could include creativity, humor, loyalty, music, language, kindness, listening, persistence, traditions, or problem-solving.

  6. Combine students' final responses into a classroom display titled "UNIDOS, SOMOS MÁS—Together, We Are More."

Activity 5

What Would You Pass On?

Time: 15–20 minutesMaterials: What Would You Pass On handout, or blank paper, pencil, optional coloring supplies

Culture is carried across generations through stories, language, music, art, traditions, values, food, objects, and everyday experiences. Hispanic Heritage Month allows students to explore what people and communities carry forward while reflecting on their own lives.

One-page handout (PDF)Download the handout
Instructions

  1. Introduce the activity by saying:

    Say

    Culture can be passed from one generation to another in many ways. It can live in the languages people speak, the music they listen to, the stories they tell, the food they make, the holidays they celebrate, the values they teach, and even the advice family members give one another. Hispanic Heritage Month allows us to learn about what Hispanic and Latino communities have carried forward while also thinking about what each of us would want to carry forward.

  2. Ask students to brainstorm examples of things people pass between generations.

  3. Give students this prompt:

    Say

    Imagine, in 500 years, someone from your family or community could receive one thing from you that represents something important about your life. What would you want them to have?

    If needed, provide examples: a recipe, photograph, song, saying, story, tradition, object, language, piece of advice, value, celebration, or memory.

  4. Students draw or write their item in the center of the page and respond:

    • What is it?
    • Where did it come from?
    • Why does it matter to you?
    • What would you want the next generation to understand about it?

  5. Invite students to share if they choose.

  6. Closing: Ask students, What gets lost when people's stories, traditions, or experiences aren't passed on? And ask students to share their responses aloud.

Print and color

Papel Picado Templates

Two papel picado designs to print and color. Hang the finished sheets side by side as a banner across the classroom.

Download the templates (PDF, 2 pages)
Papel picado coloring template with flowers, leaves, a heart, and a blank band across the middle. Papel picado coloring template with birds, butterflies, and flowers around a blank circle.

Going further

More Hispanic Heritage Month Resources

Collections from other organizations, for going further.