Cinco de Mayo is celebrated because of the Battle of Puebla, which was led to victory by Mexican General Ignacio Zaragoza. While Cinco de Mayo is not celebrated in Mexico, in the United States it is used to celebrate Mexican heritage.

Be sure to visit our main Cinco de Mayo index for fun games, recipes, coloring pages, printables and more.

What you'll need:

How to make it:

1. Print out pattern of General Zaragoza.
2. Place sheet of construction paper you chose for the background onto the table. Place pattern on top and use a pencil to trace over the pattern, this will leave indents in the background paper for later gluing.
3. Cut pattern out into the different shapes (hair, face, jacket, collar, epaulettes, etc).
4. Trace pattern pieces onto appropriate colors. For the hair and body of the jacket use black. For the face use brown, and for the hair and eyebrows use black. Lips will be pink while collar and epaulettes should be cut from yellow. Shirt at neck and eyes should be cut from white.
5. Using the pattern cut out for the face, place pattern over brown construction paper cut out of face. Use a pencil to trace the nose and ears; this will leave an indent in the brown paper. Draw with black marker on indented lines to add nose and ears.
6. Glue whites of eyes onto brown face shape. Fill in blacks of eyes with black marker. Cut small eyelid slits from brown and glue onto eyes.
7. Use black marker to draw glasses onto face.
8. Glue black jacket to the full size background sheet.
9. Next cut fringe on epaulettes (fringed shoulder pieces) and glue in place.
10. Glue collar and white shirt piece on, then face and hair.
11. Finish off with eyebrows and lips.
    

Tips:

• For younger children simply print out the pattern and use as a coloring page
• To trace easily, hold paper onto a window so that the light shines through.
• Trace carefully or the pieces may not fit!