Save More Cinco De Mayo Cents

Has Easter left your Margarita glass and your wallet empty? Well fret not for I have many marvelous ideas for making the fifth of May magical without maiming you monetarily.

Free Coloring Pages: Check out the link below to Crayola’s website. This year they are offering some fun, fast, free piñata pictures to color.

https://www.crayola.com/free-coloring-pages/seasons/spring-coloring-pages/?page=1&count=24 (Cinco De Mayo free coloring pages)

Make Your Own Rice Maracas: This is a fun, easy, messy, and relatively cheap project that you can shake up with your kids. We had everything we needed sitting around the house: plastic Easter eggs, 2 plastic spoons, clear packing tape, and uncooked rice. Fill the plastic Easter egg with rice and snap it closed (I taped it shut for good measure). Then sandwich it between the two plastic spoons and wrap the whole thing with the clear packing tape. Viola! Maracas! We used ours to supplement our Mexican Hat Dance. Check out the link below for a quick instructional video.

https://youtu.be/HheFHal-L6U (Egg Maraca how to video)

Make Your Own Piñata: Check out one of my previous posts- Birthday Bargains for instructions for making your own piñata. A word of warning- this project is both SUPER messy and SUPER fun.

https://the-thrifty-mom.com/2021/08/26/birthday-bargains/ (Birthday Bargains post with instructions for making your own piñata)

Make a Mexican Flag: This is a fun way to get your kids interested in learning about other countries. All you need is a white piece of printer paper and dot painters or markers in both red and green. Split your flag into thirds and color one third red, leave the middle white, and the last third green. The Mexican flag has an eagle and a snake in the middle which is what differentiates it from the Italian flag. I printed out pictures of an eagle and snake and had my kids cut them out and glue them on to sneak in some preschool and kindergarten motor skills.

Learn the Hat Dance: Got some littles with too much energy? Burn it off doing the traditional Mexican Hat Dance. The link below will teach you and your kids a very simplified version with modifications included for kindergarteners, first graders, and second graders to address their specific level of motor skill development so that much fun can be had by all! Little sombreros and maracas are optional …but very cute, nonetheless.

https://youtu.be/p31lF-hY9u0 (Hat Dance tutorial video)

Exercise Your Brain with Jack Hartmann: Learn to count by fives while you treat your body to a fitness fiesta or learn the Spanish words for the days of the week, months, and colors! Your preschool and kindergarteners will love the songs and colorful graphics.

https://youtu.be/Sh8YmvJuJ8A (Jack Hartmann Count by 5 Fitness Fiesta)

https://youtu.be/SQbspMMdJU8 (Jack Hartmann Spanish days of the week)

https://youtu.be/HK9jD3gWhxU (Jack Hartmann Spanish months of the year)

https://youtu.be/Jz69JxNznWA (Jack Hartmann Spanish colors)

https://youtu.be/MP5JAL46nCM (Jack Hartmann counting to 100 in Spanish)

Pre-burn Your Fiesta Calories with Some Free Workouts: You and your kids will have a blast making room for all those tacos, chips, and salsa later with your choice of a freeze dance and Yoga workout, a Mexico themed ‘would you rather’ work out, a Cinco De Mayo ‘this or that’ workout, or you can run along with Isabella from Encanto! Use the links below to check them out.

https://youtu.be/jrYUEZGFb9A (Cinco De Mayo freeze dance Yoga work out)

https://youtu.be/-hqXsW1t2tI (Mexico Would You Rather work out)

https://youtu.be/hSYxtks1jmk (Encanto Isabella’s Spring Run workout)

https://youtu.be/oj-zcp0VUao (Cinco De Mayo This or That workout)

Learn with PBS Kids: I’m really loving these PBS kids ‘learn about the holidays’ clips. They are quick, thorough, and simple to understand explanations about holidays and traditions. Check out the link below for a quick tutorial on Cinco De Mayo.

https://youtu.be/O20HgEL0t8I (PBS Kid’s What is Cinco De Mayo)

Fiestas Are Fun: Party City carries an exhaustive line of fun fiesta-themed products (cups, plates, napkins, tablecloths, piñatas, balloons). Depending on your desired level of fiesta flare, you can set your budget for as minimal or maximal as you want it to be.

https://www.partycity.com/cinco-de-mayo (Party City Cinco De Mayo supplies)

Balloons: What’s a fiesta without them? Last year I used some helium leftover from a birthday party to fill Cinco De Mayo latex balloons. I purchased the mini tank, pre-filled with gas at Walmart for around $28.00. It fills roughly twenty-five latex balloons; obviously less if you are using larger mylar balloons. Keep in mind you can blow them up the old-fashioned way for free and they are just as much fun to swat around and play with.

https://www.walmart.com/search?q=helium%20tank&typeahead=helium&cat_id=2637 (Walmart helium tank)

Food: For my picky eaters who won’t touch a bean much less a burrito, I added flare to our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by cutting them into cowboy boots and sombreros with cookie cutters. Using plastic Margarita glasses (Party City) we made ‘kid-a-ritas’ by dipping the rim of the glasses in sugar and filling them with sprite. If your kids love the idea but hate the carbonation of Sprite, then use lemonade or limeade instead.

Free Read Alouds: After exercising your brains and bodies, crafting your little hearts out, and stuffing yourself silly with themed PeanutButter and jelly sandwiches why not wind down with a nice, themed bedtime story? Find these books for free at your local library or click on the links to hear the free read alouds.

One Is a Pinata by: Roseanne Greenfield Thong takes us on a Latin-American learning adventure. Chock full of counting in English and Spanish kids will also learn about maracas, zapatos (shoes), sonrisas (smiles), popping burbujas (bubbles) and so much more. Don’t speak a word of Spanish? No worries- there’s a glossary of the words in the back of the book with a full explanation of the meaning as well as the pronunciation guide.

https://youtu.be/ZB7ldGxlOUQ (One is a Pinata read aloud)

Cinco De Mayo by: Emma Carlson Berne was a short, informative read. If you’ve ever wondered what Cinco de Mayo was about, then you’ll find your answer here. So “Let’s dance a dance, let’s play a song. It’s Cinco de Mayo today. Let’s eat the food of Mexico, pozole, tortillas– Hooray!”

https://youtu.be/LGPDz5HqIME (Cinco De Mayo read aloud)

Cinco De Mouse-O by: Judy Cox was an adorable and fun read. Mouse awakes one morning and follows his nose to discover the location of a glorious cheesy, bean-y, fiesta-y smell. At the park he is awed by the sites, piñatas, food, dancing, and more food of Cinco De Mayo! Little does he realize that cat has accompanied him, but not as a friend and not for the fiesta! Can mouse get away with his life…and some of the piñata candy?

https://youtu.be/FpiH1sUVmfs (Cinco De Mouse-o read aloud)

In Chicks and Salsa by: Aaron Reynolds a group of chickens, disgruntled and bored with the same old chicken feed, take it upon themselves to make their own batch of salsa. For dinner they have chips and salsa and LOVE it. They inadvertently inspire a wave of barn yard animals’ culinary experimentations. The ducks make guacamole, the pigs pioneer nachos, till the whole farm erupts into one big fiesta! Maybe tomorrow they’ll try French food?

https://youtu.be/jXa3m34Dww0 (Chicks and Salsa read aloud)

This is a Taco (not a squirrel) by: Andrew Cangelose features Taco the squirrel who is not like other squirrels. Instead of loving nuts he loves tacos. Though this book had absolutely nothing to do with Cinco De Mayo it was still really cute and you will learn a lot about squirrels… and tacos.

https://youtu.be/t-XDQIXZolM (This is a Taco read aloud)

Hopefully these ideas will inspire you and your family to have a fun fiesta! Feliz Cinco De Mayo!

Cheers!

Love,

Marie