Cinco de Mayo Activities for Your Party

Add a little spice to your Cinco de Mayo party with activities that everyone can try. Try to plan an assortment of activities to keep guests entertained so your fiesta can keep going well into the night!

Cinco de Mayo Activities for Adults:

• Chili Pepper Guessing Game: Fill a jar with a variety of different chili peppers (keep track of what kind and the heat level!) and have each of the guests try to guess how many are in the jar. The guest with the closest estimate wins a prize (like a basket with fresh chips and homemade salsa).

• "How Hot?": After the chili pepper guessing game, pick some peppers out of the jar (or prepare a selection of hot chili sauces and salsas), make a note of what kind they are and the heat level and then get volunteers to (bravely) try each. Have the rest of the guests guess how hot they are before the risk-takers bite. Be sure to have plenty of ice water on hand!

• Mexican Dance: Hire a dance instructor to teach your guests a traditional Mexican or Latin-inspired dance like the samba, salsa, meringue, rumba, bachata or folklorico. It'll be a fun treat that your guests will talk about for a long time after the party.

• Set up a Taco Bar: Nothing excites guests more than good food. Set up a table with all the fixings for tacos - be creative with the types of cheese and toppings you offer. Let guests make their own hard or soft taco with a variety of meat and veggies.

Cinco de Mayo Activities for Kids:

• Mexican Hat Dance Relay:  Split the kids up into two groups. Set up two sombreros a distance away, one for each of the groups. Have one child from each team run to the sombrero, do a silly Mexican hat dance around it, then run back. The first team to have all its players complete the relay wins a prize (like a box of "Hot Tamales")!

• Paper Flowers: Set up a Mexican paper flower activity for little guests. You will need a variety of tissue paper colors and pipe cleaners. To make a flower, get four piece of tissue paper in a neat stack. Fold the tissue paper stack like an accordion, making each fold about an inch wide. The tissue paper should now be a one inch strip accordion. Next, fold the strip in half, end to end. Take a pipe cleaner and tie it around the strip of tissue paper, about an inch from the fold. Then, carefully fan out the tissue paper so that none of the sheets are stuck together. Repeat with each of the sheets to create the flower. Twist the pipe cleaner around to tie the flower into a ponytail or to wear as a bracelet.

• Peso Toss: Inspired by the beanbag toss game, this activity has a Mexican twist. Set up five sombreros in a line. Label the sombreros with a point value, with the values increasing as you get further away from the starting point. Give each kid three Mexican pesos to use for the game. The kids can take turns tossing the pesos into the sombreros. The child with the most accumulated points wins! If there is a tie among players, go into a final round where the two players can each toss one coin.