Cinco de My-o-my-o...What have you been teaching those kids?

 I cannot explain my enthusiasm regarding Cinco de Mayo. The woman who waits to the last minute to buy her daughters a Christmas present will stock up on pint-sized plastic sombreros months ahead of time. The teacher who will do ANYTHING to avoid putting up a tree in her classroom will spend hours searching for the most perfect Cinco de Mayo craft for her 4th graders to assemble. And that is where things begin to go horribly awry.

How hard could it be to make a teeny-tiny burro pinata? I wondered, never anticipating that I would be screaming, "Cut the crepe paper vertically...VERTICALLY!" a million times. Apparently 9-year-olds lack the ability to "fringe" so I had to demonstrate that tactic more times than I can count to in Spanish and they only know how to partition off three inches of tape or more from the dispenser each time. I was devastated. These are crucial life skills necessary to their leading meaningful adult lives. I've been wasting valuable time teaching them to order and compare fractions and to be able to determine events leading to the American Revolution when, in fact, I should have been equipping them with basic cut and paste (and fringe) skills.