Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo simply means "The Fifth of May." Cinco de Mayo celebrates what happened in Mexico a long time ago. In 1861 Mexico was free but they had many problems. They owed a lot of money to other countries and the Mexican people were poor. The president, Benito Juarez, wanted to help his people so he stopped paying back the money owed to other countries. The ruler of France wanted his money and Mexico. He sent soldiers to Mexico. General Zaragoza waited for the French soldiers at the city of Puebla. The Mexican army was outnumbered and didn't have very good weapons. General Zaragoza had a plan. On May 5, 1862 he put his men on two hills outside the city. The French tried to go up the hills but the Mexican soldiers fought them off. Then it started to rain and the French soldiers could not get up the hills and the Mexicans won the battle. President Juarez was proud of the soldiers and declared Cinco de Mayo a holiday. Today in Mexico and the United States people celebrate.

For our Cinco de Mayo celebration we had taco salad and made mini chili pepper pinatas. I found the mini pinata idea on http://www.familyfun.com/. Click here to see the crafts: http://jas.familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts?page=CraftDisplay&craftid=11215.

It was really fun to make and very simple.

Supplies:

Green tissue paper
Red crepe streamer
tape or glue
scissors
candy

How to Make:

Take one sheet of tissue paper and fold in half. Shape into a cone. Tape the seam and twist and tape the tip of the cone. Fill with candy and twist the top of the cone. Cut off a long piece of red streamer and accordion fold it. Cut 1/4 cuts along the streamer to make a fringe. Starting at the bottom of the cone start wrapping the streamer around the cone taping it into place in intervals until you reach the top of the cone. To get to the candy inside simply tear the pepper open.

Finished Pepper.




































Alyssa Hazard posing with her pinata.
















Mikayla Hawkins showing off her pinata.
















Anna and Aleena Popp putting the finishing touches
on their chili peppers.














Very pretty chili peppers.

Alyssa Hawkins cutting some more fringe for

the top part of her pepper.