If you’re anything like me, you love tacos. Maybe to the point of wishing every day was Tuesday. I’m willing to bet that your kiddos love them, too. Heck, even dragons love tacos. So to celebrate Cinco De Mayo, set up a taco shop with DIY taco ingredients in this fun activity that combines arts & crafts, imaginative play, and a little bit of sneaky math.
Materials:
- Brown construction paper
- Green construction paper
- Yellow construction paper
- Red construction paper
- Small paper plates
- Scissors
- Brown markers/crayons
- Stapler
- Bowls to hold all of your taco components
Instructions:
Have your kids help as much as possible with each of these steps depending on their skill sets.
- To make the taco shells:
- Color the paper plates brown.
- Fold the plate in half & staple the corners where the fold is.
- To make the taco meat filling:
- Cut the brown paper into smallish squares (1-2 inches).
- Then crumple it and scrunch it until it looks like ground beef crumbles.
- To make the shredded lettuce:
- Cut the green paper in half lengthwise
- Fold one half accordion style along the long edge with small folds.
- Cut the folded paper to make small strips (1/2 – 1 inches).
- To make the cheese:
- Cut the yellow paper into small, thin strips.
- To make tomatoes.
- Draw small circles on the red paper and cut them out.
- Put your ingredients into bowls – and then fill up the tacos!
Over achiever? I’ve also included a page of free printable taco recipes that I found from Happily Ever Reading that is an adorable hands-on way to include number recognition, counting, and the all-important skill of following instructions. You could make a taco stand and “sell” tacos as well to work on even more skills like money recognition and more.
Also, check out this precious book, or it’s sequel – because dragons are pretty awesome especially when you add in tacos to the mix.
