Easy Ways to Celebrate Cinco de Mayo

It’s Cinco de Mayo, aka May 5th, which is the celebration of the Battle of Puebla, during which vastly outnumbered Mexican forces defeated French invaders during the French-Mexican War (contrary to popular belief it has nothing to do with Mexican independence, which is marked on September 16.)

Cinco de Mayo is fun to celebrate with kids because it’s a colorful holiday (in the United States, at least) and give you an opportunity to talk about Mexican culture, eat fun food and do great crafts.

Check out these Cinco De Mayo Craft Kits

Start out by watching some teacher-approved videos about Cinco de Mayo and other topics in Spanish. This collection is from Simply Kinder.

Or use this book list from Planet Smarty to find some good kids’ books about Mexico.

Make Mexico-inspired crafts like:

Tissue Paper Papel Picados | Create Craft Love

Repujado-style Cuff Bracelet | Spanglish Baby

Folk Art Bowls | Inspired by Family Mag

Mexican Flag Craft | Paper and Glue

Upcycled Castanets | Education.com

Paper Bag Pinata | Scattered Thoughts of a Crafty Mom

Foam Cup Maracas | Macaroni Kid

Easter Egg Maracas | Our Daily Craft

And don’t forget the food! It’s not very culturally sensitive to default to Tex-Mex style tacos for Cinco de Mayo, so why not try:

Arroz con Pollo | Kidspot

Chicken Chilaquiles | Hope’s Kitchen

Cheesy Tortilla Soup | Produce on Parade

Or check out the kid-friendly Mexican recipes at Food.com (hello, Mexican hot chocolate!) or the recipes from the episode of Mexican Made Easy on Food Network about cooking with kids. So yummy!

Then just turn on some Mexican music and you’re ready to go.

How do you celebrate Cinco de Mayo? I’d love to hear your ideas.

Lacing is a great fine motor activity, and most kids go through a phase where they enjoy working with lacing cards. It helps promote focus and is a great quiet activity for kids to do in the car or to fill time in the classroom. And of course knowing how to lace is the beginning of knowing how to sew, which is great for all kids to learn (more on teaching kids to sew here).

There are lots of ways to make your own lacing cards. This one is just a pin but it’s easy to make lacing cards with any shape a child is into using cardboard and a nail to poke the holes. This could be fun for letter and number recognition or spelling the child’s name. Or try this version from Hey Azka, which uses a hole punch to make bigger holes so you can lace with shoe laces.

You can also just do lacing cards with paper, but it’s a great idea to print them on card stock and/or laminate them to make them sturdier for little hands. Homeschool Share has a set of alphabet lacing cards, which are free with email signup. Deceptively Educational has a set of number lacing cards with numbers 0 to 10.

Picklebums has some basic shape lacing cards, too.

Living Life and Learning has a bunch of cute printable lacing cards, including back to school designs, shoes kids can lace and learn to tie and ocean themed lacing cards. She also has tips for making your own lacing cards.

A Rose Tinted World made their lacing cards with craft foam, which makes them a little more durable than paper and you can cut it more easily than cardboard. They used a die cutting machine but you can also cut shapes by hand.

I also love the cat and mouse cards from Seam Whisperer. They also have some spring themed designs. So cute!

If you want to make lacing cards that are more open ended, check out this tutorial form Pretty Life Girls to make lacing cards that are more like geo boards. Theirs are made with wood but you can also do this with cardboard, craft foam or card stock.

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