Cinco de Mayo

Rounding out our cultural explorations for this spring is Cinco de Mayo. We talked about what the holiday is(a day to celebrate Mexican culture in the USA!) and what it is not(Mexican Independence Day). I wanted to share one of my favorite things from Mexico from when I was a kid. A few clicks on Amazon and I had these magical beans on my doorstep.

Growing up in Texas in the eighties, you could find Mexican jumping beans alongside cash registers at convenience stores in the springtime for about a buck for five beans. After much cajoling, your parents would bend and get you an acrylic box of these critters to amuse you. Little did you know the science behind these magical beans and how they jumped all willy nilly.

The science behind it? It's basically a caterpillar that burrows into a seedpod and spends most of it's life trapped in the seed until it emerges as a moth. There's a really great PBS video on the topic. With the lower grades, the Mexican Jumping bean concept was introduced with the book "Not a Bean" by Claudia Martinez. This wonderful tale follows the lifecycle of a jumping bean and integrates many Spanish words into the story.

Learning Targets:

I can be curious and ask questions about topics to me to drive my learning.

I can learn about other cultures to better understand global issues from a different point of view.