Celebrate

May 1st

Spend some time at a park. Run in the grass. Swing on the swings. Smell the flowers. Tie some ribbons on your wrist and run. Watch the ribbons fly in the breeze.

A traditional "May Day" activity is to secretly give flowers to someone. These can be real flowers, paper flowers, or even a picture of flowers. Leave your flowers in a place where someone special will find them.

Make a paperplate basket by folding the plate into quarters and adding a handle. Tuck real flowers, silk ones or flowers crafted from paper, craft foam, felt, etc. into the openings.

Make a Decorative Birdhouse

Use 7 seed packets. (If you can get some cheap seeds, these are great. If you get more expensive seeds, plant the seeds, and use the empty packets.) Trim the top two corners off two packets to make a front and back. Measure the trimmed corners so that the bottom of the cut is the same height as the short side of a seed packet. Take one of these two packets and cut out a round hole in the middle of it for a birdhouse "door". Glue the packets together to form a house. Place one packet on the bottom, Glue two lengthwise for sides and glue the front and back packets that have been cut. Attach two more for the roof. Glue a small piece of a branch to the bottom of the circular opening and then attach a small decorative bird the the branch perch. (They carry small birds with feathers in most craft shops.)

Circus Day

May 19

Play Some Circus Games

Use some clown make-up and become a circus clown just for fun.

Stuff inflated balloons under your shirt to make "strong man" muscles and lift weights made from balloons on the ends of a rolled newspaper pole. Place a piece of string on the ground in a straight line and walk carefully on it while holding an umbrella and pretending you are a tightrope walker. Swing on a swing and pretend it is a flying trapeze. Ride your bike and do some tricks. Play with a dog and teach it some tricks and do an animal act. Make some popcorn and enjoy a circus snack!

Celebrate

Victory at the Battle of Puebla

Have a

Mexican Fiesta!

May 5th

Listen to Mariachi Music and Dance

If you don't have any music appropriate for Cinco de Mayo, you might find some on the radio, on-line or at a local library. Listen and make up your own dances. Have fun!

Feast on Mexican Food

Set a dinner table with bright colors, flowers and Mexican food. Start with a quesadilla or cheese crisp. Kids can help make a very simple version of this. Grate cheddar cheese onto a flour tortilla and heat it to melt the cheese. The easiest way to heat this is to put it in the microwave for a minute or two until the cheese melts. For a crisp tortilla, heat it in the oven and spread a little butter over the tortilla before adding the cheese. Cut the tortilla into pie shaped pieces and spread a little salsa on top. Have a snack of sliced  sweet bell peppers in green, red, yellow and orange.

Make Fiesta Flowers

Place four sheets of brightly colored tissue paper on top of one another. Fold them in half lengthwise and accordion fold them. (see figures a & b.)

Cut the folded edge so that it opens. 

Pinch together in the center and hold with a piece of wire or twist-tie. Open and separate the folds to make it look like a flower. Add wire stems and wrap them with floral tape.

Cinco de Mayo

May 5

If you live in the Southwest, such as Arizona, California, New Mexico or Texas, there will probably be opportunities to attend a local fiesta in honor of the Mexican victory at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. Fiestas are are colorful, music filled and fun. Enjoy some Mexican food. Make some fiesta tissue paper flowers.

    Make Ojos de Dios (God's Eyes). Take two craft sticks and cross one over the other. Take a piece of bright colored yarn and tie the sticks together in the middle. Wind the yarn around the sticks, going behind one and then looped around it, then behind the next one and looped around it again. Repeat the sequence until the sticks are filled with wrapped yarn. You can change colors by tying a new piece of yarn to the old and continue wrapping. For a final touch, yarn tassels can be added on the ends of each stick.

MORE MAY HOLIDAYS

MOTHER'S DAY

CRAFTS

FAMILY CELEBRATIONS

FAMILY HOLIDAYS

SPRING HOLIDAYS

CHILDREN'S DIRECTORY

KID'S CRAFTS

CRAFT KITS

PUPPETS

LEARNING TOYS

GARDEN

 WOMEN'S DIRECTORY

FAMILY HOME

Kids' Craft of the Month

Celebrate

Memorial Day

Have a patriotic picnic with red, white and blue table-cloth, plates and cups. Watch the clouds and see how many "cloud pictures" you can find. Wear patriotic hats on your picnic. (Make them using construction paper.) Play baseball! To remember the reason for the Memorial Day holiday, write a letter to someone who is serving overseas. For addresses and names of soldiers, go to:

 www.operationmilitarypride.org.

Get summer off to a safe and happy beginning by celebrating Memorial Day with your family. These days it has become a time to picnic, go to the lake or go camping. When I was young, the focus was on the parade to remember those who served our country and we always went to visit the cemetery and place flowers and flags on the graves of family members who had served and had passed away. It was a tribute that I'll never forget and a good one for bringing family together. So, while you're celebrating summer, remember to at least have a conversation with family members about those who are serving to keep freedom. Talk about people you know who have done so. Send a greeting of some sort to someone who is serving today. Support our troops.

Plan Summer Family Times

Depending on where you live, children may get out of school in May or in June or they may be in "year-round" programs where they just get a couple of weeks break in the summer. Get ready for kids to be home for summer vacation. Sit down with a calendar and plan special events and vacation time. Make up new chore charts with summer responsibilities for children. (Work some rewards in there for them too.) Have children draw pictures around a form with blank lines. Use this to record books read over the summer. Talk about ways to celebrate Independence Day and put them with your summer calendar.