Is a Fiesta party a Fiesta fiesta or a Party party?

We threw a fiesta for our daughter’s 6th birthday, but you can celebrate with a fiesta anytime. Scroll down for party games geared for young children.

Getting Ready

Invitations and Cascarones

Invitations to a fiesta-themed party were hidden inside homemade cascarones and hand-delivered.

The party details (when, where, and RSVP instructions) were printed on slips of paper that I had created on our home computer to resemble little serapes. The papers were rolled up and inserted into hollow egg shells that had been dyed with Easter egg dye. The shells were then filled with tissue paper confetti, and squares of tissue paper were glued over the top of the egg with white glue. Finally, the message-laden cascarones were carefully packed in tissue paper in tiny white boxes wrapped with colorful ribbon. A note to crack open the egg to reveal an invitation was attached to the outside of each box.

We made lots of extra cascarones (without messages) to use at the party.
Note: If you want the completed cascarones to fit well into an egg carton, make the opening in the wide part of each egg. The narrower end of the egg will fit down better into the carton.

Maracas

To use as party favors, we made maracas out of empty 8 oz. plastic water bottles. Make sure the inside of the bottles are completely dry before adding about 1/4 cup of dry rice into each bottle with a little funnel.

Because we wanted our maracas to be colorful and sturdy, we covered the bottles with paper mache. Our paper mache paste was one part all purpose flour to one part tap water, mixed until smooth. We tore newspaper into strips about 1″ wide and 6-8″ long.

After dipping a strip of newspaper into the paste and smoothing off the excess, the paper was wrapped around the bottle until the bottle was completely covered. We made sure the caps were secured to the bottles with paper mache.

Piñata

We also made our own piñata for the party. This was a messy, time-consuming project, and you might prefer to buy a piñata. But I was a stay-at-home mom and had more time than money. Besides, our party preparations always involved all three daughters, and messy art was fun for them. At our house, a mess was a sign of creativity and fun!

Supplies for our piñata included a large balloon, paper cups, paper mache paste, newspaper, tissue paper, and glue. After the piñata was dry, we cut a flap for removing the balloon and then loaded it with candy and treats.

Tissue paper was applied with white school glue. For the “fluffy” part of the piñata we wrapped small squares of tissue paper around the eraser end of a pencil, dipped the paper lightly into glue, and pushed it onto the piñata with the pencil. We repeated this process LOTS of times, adding little fluffs of tissue paper until the surface was covered.

Papel picado

We wanted our house to look festive for the fiesta, so our daughters made papel picado banners for the ceilings of our dining room and living room. Papel picado means “perforated paper” in Spanish, and it is a traditional Mexican folk art.

We cut tissue paper into rectangles and folded them in half and then in half again. Each of our daughters cut designs and shapes out of their folded rectangle and unfolded them to reveal their designs! We then used tape to attach each papel picado to a piece of ribbon and suspended them from the light fixtures and across the ceiling!

Party bags and tissue paper flowers

For added decoration on the dining room table, front door, and throughout the party area, we made tissue paper flowers.

Stack about 10 rectangles of tissue paper. Make 1″ accordian folds in the stack. Notch both sides of the center, and tie securely with a pipe cleaner or string. Fan out the paper. Pull one layer of tissue paper upwards, and repeat with all layers.

We made mini flowers for each party favor bag and attached them with curling ribbon.

Mexican Bingo boards

Loteria is often referred to as Mexican Bingo. It is played with a deck of cards that have images of everyday objects. Each player’s board has been randomly created with card images, and every board has a different arrangement of images.

For this party we used a set of Spanish flash cards that had pictures of familiar objects and the words in English and Spanish.

When we made the boards over 20 years ago, we didn’t have the ease of computer clip art, so ours were drawn by hand. Today you could copy and paste images to create your own boards on your computer. I selected 24 flashcards and sketched line drawings of each object plus the number 6 (the birthday girl’s age). I photocopied the sheet of drawings so that there was one full page for each party guest. I then cut each page apart into 25 squares and my daughters and I randomly glued the squares in a 5×5 grid to colored card stock so that each board was different, but also so each card held all 25 images. The number 6 was the center square for all the boards.

When I play Bingo with young children, I like to have every object on all the boards. They will still win at different times, but every child can place a marker every time an object is called.

We hole punched the top and bottom of the card stock and tied yarn to the boards for decoration.

As children arrived at the party, they chose a Loteria board, used colored pencils to fill in the images, and attached a label with their name on it. We set the boards aside to play later.

We had borrowed Mariachi music CDs from the public library and had music playing as children colored.

Games

May We Come to Your Fiesta?

The first game we played was like the classic game, “May we cross the river?” but we called it “May we come to your fiesta?”

• Everyone lines up on one end of the yard with the birthday girl in the middle.
• The kids call out, “… may we come to your fiesta?”
• “It” answers, “only if you …” (examples: are wearing pink, have a ponytail, etc.)
• Kids who have the characteristic called for may pass freely to the other side.
• The rest of the children can try to sneak across, but “it” can try to tag them.
• When everyone is across, “it” chooses a new person to be in the middle.

In the pictures below, the girls are checking to see if they’re wearing the designated color.

Treasure Hunt and Puzzle

We had a simple rhyming treasure hunt in the house and yard. With every clue, the girls also found a ziplock bag with two large puzzle pieces. Before the party I had drawn and colored a birthday poster and cut it into sixteen odd-shaped pieces.

“In the yard there’s a place where a tree used to grow.
Look for a clue there. You’ll find it, I know.”

“On a dry summer day when the weather is hotter,
You turn this on to give grass some water.”

“It has lots of keys but they don’t fit a lock.
Some of its friends are Mozart and Bach.”

Before the party I had prepared a posterboard template for the puzzle with the outline of each piece. After the final clue, the kids worked together to assemble the sixteen-piece puzzle, taping the pieces to the template.

Their prizes for completing the puzzle were the maracas, and everyone danced to lively mariachi music while shaking their maracas! After a few minutes, the girls put their maracas in their party bags.

Loteria

Everyone sat in a circle on the floor and we passed out their Loteria cards. We put handfuls of colored foam shapes within reach to use as markers.

Each child was given a real Mexican coin to cover the center square. I had gone to a coin shop and bought pesos and centavos to use as prizes. We called the squares with Spanish flashcards, reading the name of the objects in English and Spanish. When a child had five in a row (like Bingo), her prize was another Mexican coin. We played until everyone had won at least once, and we made sure everyone had three or four coins to keep. They put their coins and Loteria boards in their party bags.

• bell– campana
• balloon– globo
• bird– pájaro
• book– libro
• button– botón
• cat– gato
• chicken– pollo
• dog– perro
• duck– pato
• fish–pez
• flower– flor
• frog– rana
• goat– cabro
• hat– sombrero
• kite– cometa
• mouse– ratón
• pig– cerdo
• rabbit– conejo
• seashell– concha
• sheep– oveja
• shoe– zapata
• six– seis
• squirrel– ardilla
• star– estrella
• tree– árbol

Pato, Pato, Ganso (Duck, Duck, Goose!)

This version of Duck, Duck, Goose was played outside with cascarones! “It” took a cascarone and walked around behind the circle, tapping kids on the head, saying, “Pato, Pato, Pato… Ganso!”

When “It” said “Ganso!”, she cracked the cascarone over that person’s head. The Ganso chased “It” around the circle and tried to tag “It” before she sat down in the empty place. Then Ganso became the next “It.”

Cascarones

We had free play to break the remaining cascarones. Hint: Break the egg shell OVER the other person’s head, not ON their head.

Piñata

Our homemade piñata was suspended from a tree branch in our yard.

We chose not to blindfold the children. They had fun taking turns swinging at the piñata with their eyes open!

Our piñata was filled with packs of candy and treats– one for each child. When the piñata finally broke open, instead of a free-for-all for candy, everyone took one pack. Some children might like the typical, more aggressive style of collecting treats, but our daughters never enjoyed that part. With this method, everyone still shared in the fun and the reward.

Cake and Gifts

Okay, I hope this cake looked better in real life, because these photos don’t look so good. 🙂 It was a funfetti flavor with lots of butter cream icing, and it was supposed to look like a sombrero. The birthday girl was thrilled, so that’s all that really mattered.

Pass the Maraca

Before our daughter opened her birthday gifts, we played a quick game. As mariachi music played, girls passed a maraca around the circle. The person holding the maraca when the music stopped was able to take a wrapped prize from a basket. The prizes were cute little stuffed animals.

We had a fun day!

“This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it”. 

Psalm 118:24