Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Today was Cinco de Mayo! We started preparing for Cinco de Mayo last Friday by making papier-mâché maracas with a flour and water mixture (2 parts water, 1 part flour), tissue paper and water balloons. Since we had a few kids absent, we just did 3 tables instead of 4 like we usually to. The kids chose the color tissue paper they wanted, dipped it in the water and flour mixture, the smoothed it out over their balloons. 

Once they had a good layer with no holes, we put them on our social studies table to dry over the weekend. Monday, the kids popped their balloons inside of the hardened shell, poured rice inside, and I hot glued a wooden dowel through the hole at the bottom of the maraca.

For their math stations today, the kids did 2 different activities. One was a roll, add 10 and color and the other was a 100s chart mystery picture.

At the roll and color station, the kids got in pairs and each chose a color to me. One rolled the dice and added 10 to the number they rolled. If they got it right, they got to color the number in. If they got it wrong or there were no more of that number left to color, they lost their turn.

I was green and he was red ... he beat me!

At their 100s chart mystery picture station, the kids colored their 100s charts using red, green and yellow to reveal a set of maracas!

After computer and P.E., we came back to the room and the kids made Mexican flags.

And after recess ... it was piñata time! First the kids went and tried to break the piñata ...

... and then it was out turn!

 

 

Thank you, Mrs. Moran for taking pictures!

When we went back inside, the kids did their reading and writing station, which were all Cinco de Mayo themed. They did a Cinco de Mayo word search, wrote about their favorite part of our book Fiesta, made words with the letters in Cinco de Mayo, and wrote sentences to go along with pictures in their own book of Cinco de Mayo symbols.

At the end of the day, before we went home, we made tortillas! I gave each of the kids a ball of dough and they rolled it as flat as they could, then I rolled the rest of the way. We cooked them, and slathered them in butter ... yum!

They weren't the prettiest, but they were good!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!