Cinco de Mayo Coloring Pages: Bring the Fiesta Home for Kids

Big shapes, thick outlines, very few elements per page. A single sombrero, a sun, a chunky maraca. Toddlers do not need a scene to interpret. They need a clear blob to fill in with the most exciting crayon they own. Skip anything with tiny details, and skip anything that asks them to stay inside narrow lines.

Now you can add a cactus with a face, a piñata with simple geometric panels, a small fiesta scene with one or two characters. Five-to-sevens want to recognize what they are coloring. They also love anything with eyes, so faces on inanimate objects are gold at this age.

This age can handle papel picado patterns, a folkloric dancer mid-twirl, a marketplace scene, or detailed Aztec-inspired motifs. They want a small challenge, and they want the result to look real when they are done. A page with twenty things to color in keeps them occupied for the entire pre-dinner stretch.

Within the holiday there are four families of pages that work well. Pick one, pick all four, mix and match.

Tables with bowls of guacamole, banners overhead, kids dancing, a guitarist tucked into the corner. These are the busiest pages and they feel the most like a real party. They work well for older kids who can handle multiple characters and props on the same sheet.

Star-shaped piñatas, paper banners, papel picado strung between two posts. Geometric, repetitive, and somehow very satisfying for kids who like to be neat. These pages also double as decoration once they are done.

Tacos with smiley faces, a guitar resting against a chair, a maraca in mid-shake. Food and music pages double as conversation starters at the dinner table, especially if you can match what is on the page to what is on the actual table.

A burro wearing a flower crown, a friendly cactus, a parrot with bright feathers waiting to be colored. The natural world of Mexico is its own coloring playground, and it works well for kids who are not yet ready for human figures.

A finished page does not have to end up on the fridge and then in the recycling.

1. 1Garland it. Color two or three pages, cut around the shapes, hole-punch the corners, and string them on twine for an instant papel-picado-style banner across the kitchen.
2. 2Frame one. Pick the page that looks best when finished, slide it into a 5x7 dollar-store frame, and put it next to the chips and salsa as table decor. Photograph it before relatives leave.
3. 3Card it. Fold a colored page in half, write a short note inside, give it to grandma or a neighbor. Children love giving gifts they made themselves, and the recipients almost always keep them.
4. 4Place-mat it. Slide a finished page into a clear sheet protector, tape the edges, and you have a wipe-clean place mat for the meal. It will survive guacamole.
5. 5Album it. Start a "holidays we celebrated" folder. One coloring page per holiday per kid. In five years you will have a stack worth crying over.

• Print on slightly heavier paper if you can. 80 to 100 gsm holds crayon and marker much better than thin printer paper.
• Have at least one rich color in the box: deep red, bright green, sunny yellow. Cinco de Mayo pages look flat without those three.
• Let kids pick the page. Ownership beats curation every time.
• Color alongside them, even one page. The room gets quieter and the conversations get better.

Below is a hand-picked grid of every Cinco de Mayo page in the catalog right now. Print as many as you need, no signup, no fuss. Bookmark this page if you want to come back to it next year too.

That is the whole kit. Print, color, eat, repeat. ¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo!