Cinco de Mayo Decorations

Cinco de Mayo is upon us. I celebrated by teaching my students to make two inexpensive and easy crafts: papel picado and sombrero decorations. For the sombreros I hot glued upside-down Styrofoam cups to plates. The students decorated these by spray painting, and gluing ribbon, and pompoms.  The bulk of the lesson came from my dramatic telling of France and Mexico's battle at Puebla on the 5th of May, 1862.

Older students cut rectangles of tissue paper, either by folding it like a snowflake (for a radial composition) or an accordion and in half again for a crystallographic balance. The word "papel" means paper in Spanish, and "picado" means cut or chopped. I hope when at least one of my children gets married, they will let me make them a bunch of white papel picado decorations because I can imagine a large room (or garden) transformed for $20 worth of tissue paper and a week's worth of evenings spent watching movies and cutting.  Until then, I'll continue to find little projects to honor Mexican culture and history. If you are going to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, why not do it with a taco and a craft?