What you need:

• A paper grocery bag for each guest
• Craft items like markers, crepe paper, sequins, pom-poms, and our Handy Manny stickers

Directions:

1. Make a cut down the front and middle of the paper bag.
2. Create a neck hole out of the bottom of the bag. Hold up the bag in front of you and envision the approximate size of your guests. (You don't want to make the neck hole too big.)
3. Cut a hole in each side for the arms.
4. Cut the bottom edge of the vest so it is fringed.
5. Allow children to decorate with your craft materials.

What you need:

• Carpet tubes, 3-4" in diameter, round oatmeal boxes, or a plastic flower pot
• Material that is strong and flexible: a piece of an inflatable pool toy or heavy gauge plastic works well
• 1-2" wide packing or masking tape
• Paint, paper or fabric to decorate the drum

Directions:

1. If using carpet tubes, cut to approximately 12" high; leave other items as is.
2. Cut a piece of your beach ball or plastic to size, leaving a couple of inches excess for overlapping later.
3. Stretch plastic tightly over opening of boxes, pots, or tubes. Tape in place.
4. Decorate drum(s) using paint, paper or fabric. You might wish to cover up the areas where you used tape by wrapping yarn or jute around the drum.

What you need:

• For each child, have two foam or paper cups - any size as long as they match
• Clear, strong tape
• Craft items like markers, crepe paper, sequins, pom-poms, etc.
• Noisemakers like dried beans, rice, pennies, or small pebbles

Safety Note: Because these materials are choking hazards, assemble and tape them tightly before the party if guests are under the age of three and leave only the decorating for the partygoers.

Directions:

1. Place "noisemakers" inside one cup.
2. Place the mouth of the second cup tightly against the mouth of the first cup and tape both mouths tightly together with strong packing tape.
3. Allow children to decorate their handcrafted musical instrument.

The hat dance, a popular folk dance in México, encourages lots of creative expression. Encourage the children to keep their mariachi vests on for this activity!

What you need:

• A large sombrero (hat) or one of our printable sombreros
• Authentic music from México
• Dancing sticks made from paper towel rolls and several long strands of crepe paper attached to one end

Directions:

1. Ask the children to form a large giant circle around the sombrero(hat) by holding hands.
2. Explain that when you begin the music, they should all begin to walk sideways, facing the sombrero (hat) and keeping their hands held together.
3. Call out the name of a child; that child then leaves the circle, walks to the middle of the circle, and dances around the hat until another child's name is called. The way they dance is entirely up to them; you can put scarves or the "dancing sticks" in the middle to encourage unique movements.
4. The child rejoins their friends in the circle when another name is called.
5. You can vary the activity by having children stop and clap for individual dancers, invite the circle to skip/hop/or sway sideways instead of walking, etc.

Although Manny's motto is "You break it, we fix it," this activity is all about breaking the piñata. Watch the kids make a mad dash to gather as many treats as they can!

What you need:

• Our printable piñata
• Bats for striking the piñata, made with tightly rolled-up newspaper that is taped securely
• Blindfold (optional)

Tips:

1. Make sure the piñata is set up in an area where armed and dizzy kids are out of the way of other objects.
2. Pack the piñata with enough toys and candy so that there will be enough for each child.

Las manzanas (apples), los chícharos/guisantes (peas), los plátanos (bananas), los pimientos (peppers) - are you getting hungry yet? Handy Manny's memory game makes kids hungry to learn the names of fruit and veggies in English and Español!

What you need:

• A few sets of our printable cards so that more than one pair of children can play at a time
• A space large enough for several pairs of children to spread out their cards and play
• Prizes

Instructions:

1. Shuffle each deck of cards.
2. Lay them out, face down, on a flat surface in rows that are even in number.
3. Children take turns choosing two cards at a time to see if they've made a match.
4. The child who makes the most matches wins a prize.

Tamales, an authentic dish made from corn husks and steam-cooked corn masa (dough), are the ultimate in comfort food in many Hispanic countries. And if children in the United States play with hot potatoes, why can't your party guests have a little fun with a tamal that is toasty warm? To avoid injury, make sure not to use anything truly hot to the touch.

What you need:

• A small, easy-to-handle object that can double as a tamal (i.e. two pieces of felt sewn together and filled with rice, a small pillow, a ball, or even a mini-microwaveable "bean bag" filled with pearl barley, dry buckwheat, or dried beans that you warm up a little bit right before the game.)

Instructions:

1. Have the children sit in a circle.
2. Have a grown-up sit in the middle (a child can take the grown-up's place once the guests understand how the game is played).
3. The game begins when the leader closes his or her eyes and tosses the tamal to a player in the circle. Immediately, this player throws the tamal to someone else, who in turn throws it to someone else, as if the tamal were too warm to handle.
4. Soon, the leader calls out "hot!" (try using ¡caliente! too - the Spanish word for "hot"). Tamal throwing must stop and the player holding the tamal must leave the circle.
5. The tamal then goes back to the center leader, who closes his or her eyes again and the game starts over.
6. Play until only one player remains.