Dora Fiesta Inspiration

So to catch up where we left off - How can I create a Dora party, without it being "too Dora'ish"?

So I started to do some research (yes, I do research for Amelie's parties - overkill? What of it?) it became apparent that Dora's actual country of origin is, I think, deliberately left a bit of a mystery. I like that.

I even stumbled across an online chat forum where there was much debate about whether she was Mexican, Purertorican or Ecuadorian - with convincing cases for all possibilities.

The doubt about her origin allowed me to look into, learn a bit about and think creatively about a whole range of cultural traditions and customs which culminated in the idea of a Fiesta birthday - my nod to Dora but without buying into the commercialism....too much.

After some google image searching of "Fiesta" revealed too many tacky plastic inflatable cactus for my liking and images of a little Ford hatch back - a little off target,  a friend came up with the idea of googling 'Cinco De Mayo" (and thank you to everyone who gave encouragement or shared my pain and came up with ideas and sent links to Dora parties).

Cinco De Mayo is a celebration held in the United States and parts of Mexico on the 5th of May to commemorate the Mexican army's victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla on 5 May 1862. From what I have read, the day has become a date to celebrate Mexican culture. Who knew searching for party ideas for my 3 year old could be so educational?!

Needless to say the google image searches delivered a beautiful mix of colour and culture, costumes, happy faces and plenty of inspiration for Amelie's party. Muchas gracias, Dora! 

Besides learning a whole bunch, I also discovered some great craft ideas that Amelie and I could do together in preparation for the party, my favourite being my take on Papel Picado (perforated paper - think rectangle coloured paper snowflakes), a Mexican folk art that is now used as festival and holiday decorations. While traditionally, I understand, tissue paper is used, Amelie and I painted some rectangle paper doilies and then folded them over twine to create our own Papel Picado bunting.

Another Mexican tradition that we enjoyed was making coloured tissue paper flowers. Apparently, the craft of making paper flowers was originally brought to Mexico from East Asia and so is referred to as papel de china.  

At this stage, I should point out that despite enjoying the paper craft ideas mentioned above, after last year's efforts in pinata making, I decided that I would buy a pinata this year and let out a little squeal when I stumbled across a smiling star shaped pinata in a $2 shop which I think ties in nicely with the magic stars that feature on Dora.

Of course and unavoidably, I came across plenty of images for children's Dora parties and so I selected a few ideas from the Dora story line to incorporate into the fiesta celebrations too. Humph.

So as you can see I managed to come across plenty of Dora inspired fiesta ideas.

Cue Fiesta Trio - We did it, we did it, we did it, yay! Yay, whoo, horay, we did it!...

Argh!

Sources:
uno 
dos 
tres 
cuatro
cinco
seis
siete
ocho
nueve
diez
once
doce
trece
catorce
quince
dieciséis
 I hope you've enjoyed this little social studies edition of Amelie in Wonderland. Please forgive me if there are any inaccuracies in my understanding of these traditions - feel free to leave a comment to correct them or shed more light on them as I found them all very interesting and beautiful.