Fun Cinco de Mayo Activities for Kids
Are you wanting to celebrate May 5th this year, but not sure where to start? Spend the day with us to see how we learn about Mexican culture with educational and fun Cinco de Mayo activities for kids!
I plan out a fun day for the whole family with Cinco de Mayo crafts, games, and food. We celebrate Mexican traditions by making DIY piñatas, colorful papel picado, and taco crafts. We go on a scavenger hunt, review math skills and practice handwriting with the free printable Cinco de Mayo worksheets, and eat delicious Mexican food like guacamole, salsa, tacos, and tres leches cake.
These Cinco de Mayo activities for kids are easy to pull together and are perfect for entertaining and educating kids of all ages. We always enjoy celebrating May 5th together as a family. Let’s dive in to our lesson plans.
What is Cinco de Mayo?
Cinco de Mayo, which translates to “Fifth of May” in Spanish, is the day that commemorates Mexico’s victory over France at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.
I was surprised to learn that Cinco de Mayo isn’t widely celebrated in Mexico as a holiday. However, it has become popular in the United States as a day to celebrate Mexican heritage and culture.
It’s important to note that Cinco de Mayo is not the same as Mexico’s Independence Day, which is celebrated on September 16.
Read Books and Watch Videos about Mexico
As a homeschooling mom and former teacher, I like to introduce a new topic or place by reading books and watching educational videos. This helps to set the stage with an overview of what we are going to learn and why it’s important.
We have several children’s books at our local library that explores the history and significance of Cinco de Mayo and provides cultural context. We read at least one book together on May 5th to learn more about Mexican heritage.
Online resources like YouTube videos and interactive websites are also great for learning about Mexican culture. Some of our favorites are virtual tours of Mexican landmarks.
You can visit famous sites like the Chichen Itza ruins, the beaches of Cancun, or the busy streets of Mexico City. My kids and I are visual learners and these interactive maps and virtual reality experiences help us to explore Mexico’s history and geography.
You can tailor the types of videos you watch based on your child’s interests. One year when my daughter was learning how to the play the piano, we focused on traditional Mexican music, mariachi instruments, and dance.
We learned some basic salsa steps and had a mini dance party at home. Dancing is a great way to add movement to your lesson plans and helps children to express themselves. We all had a blast.
Cinco de Mayo Coloring Pages and Printable Activities
As a teacher, I made activities for my students to go along with our lesson plans. When I transitioned to homeschooling my children, I was not able to find any printable Cinco de Mayo worksheets that I thought my kids would enjoy, so I made my own.
When I make holiday activities, I include fun worksheets that kids enjoy like coloring pages and word search puzzles, which pair nicely with celebrations. I also include elements that focus on critical skills like reading, writing, and math to help reinforce learning goals.
Coloring pages
These free printable Cinco de Mayo coloring pages help kids learn about traditional Mexican symbols like sombreros, maracas, and cacti. Children use the addition and subtraction color by number worksheet to review math skills and practice vocabulary and writing skills with the tracing worksheets.
Puzzles
If you’re looking for quieter activities to engage your children, printable worksheets like these Cinco de Mayo word search, dot to dot, and crossword puzzles can challenge their problem-solving skills and expand their knowledge of Mexican traditions.
Scavenger hunt
I made this Cinco de Mayo scavenger hunt as a fun activity to introduce my children to Mexican culture. Kids love to search and find the words hidden around the room. Once they find the cards, they write the words on their recording sheet.
We also use the cards to play a memory-style game and matching words to pictures. Finally, I have them practice arranging and writing the Cinco de Mayo words in alphabetical order.
Cinco de Mayo Crafts for Kids
In our house, a holiday celebration wouldn’t be complete without some sort of craft.
We have enjoyed all of these over the years, but my children’s favorite Cinco de Mayo craft is building a piñata. It’s also the one that takes the longest to make and uses the most supplies, so keep that in mind when you’re planning out your day.
If you’re short on time or supplies, you may want to choose the papel picado or taco craft for your hands-on activity.
Build a piñata
My kids ask to make piñatas for Cinco de Mayo every year. I’m not sure if they have more fun making them, filling them with treats, or breaking them open.
You can buy a piñata from the store, but we enjoy making ours out of paper mache, using a balloon, newspaper, and colorful crepe paper. It doesn’t always look the greatest, and isn’t what you would find on Instagram, but it’s colorful and fun to make.
The downside to making a paper mache piñata is it takes a few days for it to fully dry. If you don’t want to wait for paper mache to dry, but still want to make a piñata, you can make one out of cardboard using glue or tape.
Choose the shape you want to make and cut two identical pieces out of cardboard. Then, cut strips of cardboard and tape them in between the two larger shapes to make a 3D object.
In my opinion, cardboard pinatas are easier to make, however they are a bit harder to break open. This is fine, and sometimes preferred, if you have older children. To make a carboard pinata easier to open, leave large gaps between the pieces of tape.
Kids can then fill the piñatas with treats and enjoy the excitement of breaking them open. Hang the piñata from a tree branch and let them take turns trying to break it open with a stick or bat. This is a fun game that also teaches children how to share and work together as a team.
Make papel picado
Another creative activity is making papel picado, or Mexican perforated paper banners, which are used in many Mexican festivities. The process to make papel picado is easy and similar to making paper snowflakes in the winter.
Supplies
- Tissue paper – any color
- Scissors – to cut out shapes
- String – to hang up banner
- Tape – to attach banner to string
One of our favorite parts of making papel picado is discovering the designs we create. The cuts are always different, so the designs are different. Try folding the paper into different shapes as well as cutting out different shapes. There’s no wrong way to do it.
How to make papel picado
- Cut one piece of tissue paper into four equal pieces. You can fold the full sheet in half two times to see where to cut.
- Fold the paper in half from right to left (seam on right).
- Fold the paper in half from top to bottom (seam on top).
- Fold the bottom right corner to the top left corner to make a triangle.
- Fold the top in half to make a smaller triangle.
- Use scissors to cut out small shapes.
- Open the paper up to see your design.
- Attach your designs to a string using tape or staples.
Hang these colorful banners up around your home for a festive touch to your Cinco de Mayo celebrations.
Taco craft
My children love tacos and this easy Cinco de Mayo craft for kids gets them to practice cutting with large shapes and outlines as they cut out taco toppings.
This is a fun Cinco de Mayo activity for preschool, Kindergarten, and first grade students to help build fine motor skills.
After the shapes are cut, children glue the taco toppings inside the tortilla shell to make their own taco craft. Kids can decorate their tacos any way they like.
Cinco de Mayo Party Food for Kids
Our last activity of the day is to celebrate Cinco de Mayo with delicious Mexican food. Get your kids involved in the kitchen and cook up some delicious Mexican dishes with these kid-friendly recipes.
Appetizers
Two popular Mexican-inspired snacks are guacamole and salsa. You can buy both of these pre-made at the store, but they are also easy to make at home from scratch.
Show your kids how to mash avocados and mix them with lime juice, diced tomatoes, onions, and cilantro. They can have fun customizing their own guacamole with their preferred level of spiciness.
Here’s how to make our family’s favorite guacamole recipe. It’s so easy to make!
Ingredients
- 3 avocados
- 1 lime, juiced
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 2 Roma tomatoes, diced
- 3 T chopped cilantro or parsley
- 1/4 cup diced onion (optional)
- 1 pinch cayenne pepper (optional)
How to make guacamole
- Mash the avocados, lime juice and salt together in a bowl.
- Mix in the remaining ingredients.
- Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Main dish
Tacos are always a crowd pleaser in my family. My husband likes beef tacos, but my kids prefer these ground chicken tacos.
We set up a taco bar on our kitchen counter with the tortillas and all the toppings. For us, that looks like shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, shredded cheese, chopped parsley or cilantro, sour cream, salsa, and of course guacamole.
Everyone assembles their own tacos. I encourage my kids to try different combinations and flavors, but they often choose the same things – tortilla, meat, cheese, and guacamole. Ha! That just means more toppings for my husband and I.
Dessert
My kids and I make the traditional Mexican dessert tres leches cake, or three milks cake together. Everyone looks forward this moist, creamy dessert every year.
Preparing food is a life-long skill, and Cinco de Mayo is the perfect time to teach your kids how to make and enjoy Mexican food.
Celebrate with Fun Cinco de Mayo Activities for Kids
The beginning of May is always busy in our house. We are wrapping up testing and the school year, getting the garden going, and planning for summer.
Regardless of how busy are, we always spend May 5 learning about Mexico and celebrating their culture with these educational and fun Cinco de Mayo activities for kids.
I hope you are able to try some of these ideas with your own family this year.
Happy Cinco de Mayo!
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