Popcorn Pizza and What Is It Good For?

When I moved in my new apartment I bought my furniture from IKEA. Now I have tons of empty cardboard boxes that I don’t know what to do with. The lampshade came in two boxes, one of which looked like a pizza box, and it had a cardboard circle inside.

Then I remembered that my kids love the song “Do You Like Broccoli Ice Cream” from Super Simple Songs (about silly food combinations, such as popcorn pizza). So this was the perfect occasion to review it.

I made a pizza and decorated its box. I cut the pizza in 8 slices, which can be used in lots of different ways:

• first of all, the kids can practice counting in English. It’s useful to have all sorts of props, to help children understand better the relationship between numbers and quantities;
• the pizza slices are also useful for subtraction: we can pretend to eat the slices and see how many are left;
• the pizza has different vegetables (and popcorn, of course) drawn on it, so it’s easy to put the slices back together, by matching the drawings on the margins. It’s like an eight-piece puzzle;
• each slice has a number on the back, so the kids can group the slices together according to the numbers. You can use them to play a guessing game: place the whole pizza with the numbers face up, then the kids close their eyes while one of them or the teachers pretends to eat one slice. They will have to guess which slice has been eaten.
• the children can pretend to bake/sell pizzas (use other props to make it more fun: paper money, a small table, a cash register, a toy oven, etc.) – pretend play has so many learning benefits!
• this is an invitation to make a pizza – kids love kneading dough, so this would be a fun thing to cook.

Who said you need expensive toys to have fun?

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