Cinco De Mouse-O
This book was a cute one that will keep most elementary school students interested easily.
It shares real facts about Cinco De Mayo while telling a story about a curious little mouse exploring a Mexican Fiesta and escaping a hungry cat!
I love anything that makes education enjoyable and paves such an important love for learning at a young age that will hopefully stay with children for a lifetime.
Max Celebrate Cinco De Mayo
A cute little story about an American boy spending the day with his Mexican friend while they celebrate Cinco De Mayo. This story tells real facts about the Mexican holiday while also showing someone from another culture experience it for the first time.
I love so much about this little story and what it teaches not only about Cinco De Mayo but also about inclusion, supporting differences and enjoying each other’s different life stories.
It’s the perfect length to be able to fit time in for a craft to go along with the story.
Festivals of the world – Mexico
This book very briefly mentions Cinco De Mayo, but I still thought it was a great book to add to the roster for the holiday because it touches on all kinds of Mexican traditions. Many people associate Cinco De Mayo with Independance day when that is actually incorrect, I thought something with all these facts in one place was a great resource for the classroom. We spoke of what Cinco De Mayo was and were able to flip a few pages over to also read about the actual Independance day as well.
Sweet Flags
Materials needed: Strawberries, white meltable chocolate, toothpicks, cupcake papers and green sprinkles.
Rinse your strawberries and either set to the side to dry or use a paper towel to dry them off completely. Melt your chocolate according to the packaging instructions, usually in about 30 second intervals, mixing in-between to avoid burning. Stick toothpicks in the end of your strawberries to make it easier to handle while dipping and separate your cupcake papers.
Once you’re ready and the strawberries are dried start dipping them into the chocolate leaving enough red at the top so that the colors are broken into three parts to mimic the Mexican flag, then roll in the green sprinkles and set inside your cupcake wrapper to harden.
The solidifying process only takes a few moments and they’re ready to enjoy.
These were so delicious and easy to make!
Mini Sombreros
Materials needed: Icing, sprinkles, flat cookies and marshmallow or snack size rice Krispy treat.
We used flat cookies that were more of a harder crumble cookie, but I think using a soft baked one would be easier for hands that are not so gentle.
Start by piping icing around the edge then roll cookie in sprinkle of your choice, after you’ve rolled your cookie in sprinkled put a dollop of icing directly on top of the cookie to attach your topper.
This was simple but also sweet for us to do with minimal steps needed. You could decorate around the topper or even use some sort of string candy, but our cookie was a little crumbly which made it better to keep it short and sweet!
Personal Pinatas
Materials needed: Scissors, construction paper, tissue paper, toilet paper rolls, hole puncher, yarn, assorted candy and glue sticks.
First, we punched holes at the top of our rolls and ran yarn through them, we then started by gluing tissue paper to the ends of our tubes and placing small candy gently inside.
I was able to get some actual Mexican candy from the local Walmart which felt like a score!
We then closed up the top with another piece of tissue paper. I precut pieces of construction into four separate pieces then cut little slices halfway through those pieces to emulate a real pinata. We then started attaching those pieces starting at the bottom one by one working our way up to the top by wrapping it around the mini pinata.
This was fairly simple although some smaller hands did need help to wrap the paper neatly. It saved a lot of time precutting the paper and adding slits. These Pinata are great to either celebrate with in class or be able to take home to their families and pass on what they’ve learned about this holiday!
Chickie Maracas
Materials needed: Refillable eggs, plastic spoons, clear packing tape and uncooked beans.
The cutest maracas I’ve ever seen were also so simple to make! Simply pop enough beans to fill one end of your egg and close it up. Take two spoons and grip them around the egg then wrap your tape around the egg and spoons. Little hands may need a little help wrapping the tape, but it was limited. You could also fill the eggs with a little snack for later if you were wanting to make a sweet treat.
We formed a little Mariachi band with our new instruments and had a great time celebrating Cinco De Mayo right there!
Cactus Treats
Materials needed: pretzel rods, green meltable chocolate, white sprinkles and something to spread the chocolate, we used a plastic knife.
Melt your chocolates according to the packaging, we do this in 30 second increments stirring in between. Once chocolate is melted and smooth start dipping the rods into the chocolate and smooth it up the rod using the utensil. Once you have the chocolate you would like then go ahead and sprinkle some white sprinkles on, we even added some cut up pink marshmallows to look like cacti flowers.
A super simple and sweet treat for all to enjoy and be mini chefs.
Mini Sombreros
Materials needed: Preprinted worksheet, colorful crayons or markers, scissors and glue stick.
Start by added the letters to spell the artists name and color in the pieces needed to make a sombrero. Cut all the pieces out and attach them together using a glue stick.
Easy peasy on this one and a great way to get those little hands working while enjoying themselves. These are great decorations for the room, lockers or wherever our little fiesta will take place!
Mariachi Guitars
Materials needed: finger paint, paint brushes, cardboard, yarn or string, hole puncher and scissors.
Make an outline on the cardboard in the shape of a guitar and cut the shape out, punch the holes where your string will run on the guitar, start decorating.
Use your fingers or paintbrush but keep in mind dry time will depend on the gooeyness of the paint. Allow at least an hour to dry.
Once the paint is dry run your string through the holes and join your maracas at the fiesta.
Cinco Fact Book
Materials needed: Premade Book pages, scissors, coloring utensils and stapler.
Color the pictures in your book then cut the pages out while also laying them in numerical order. Once their all cut out, colored and in order staple them together.
We then read this book together. I really loved this book and that they could take it with them to read over and over again.