Welcome to the classroom! We love to play, learn, create and sing together in the classroom, and we’d like to encourage our classroom friends to keep learning and playing at home once Caitie’s Classroom is over. We’ve put together activities and resources so the playing, learning, creating and singing doesn’t have to stop once Caitie says goodbye. Try these out at home or in your own classroom, and have fun!
In this episode of Caitie’s Classroom, we are exploring one of Caitie’s favorite foods – pizza! We turn the classroom into a pizza shop and are open for business. Help Caitie make and deliver pizzas in the classroom, and read on for ideas on how to play pizza shop at home!
Favorite Foods
Pizza is one of Caitie’s favorite foods for three reasons: it’s delicious, it’s easy to share with friends, and there are so many toppings! Ask your little ones what their favorite food is and see if they too can come up with three reasons why they like it so much.
Pizza Toppings
There are so many toppings you can put on pizza! Pizza toppings can make pizza really exciting. In the classroom we talk about different food items that we might like on our pizza, and some that we definitely do not want on our pizza! Pizza is all about choice, and trying new things.
Look at different items in your kitchen. Would you put it on a pizza? Some items might be silly, and some you might like to try! You never know what might be a delicious pizza topping until you try it!
Play Pizza
In the classroom we have a fun pizza toy. You can recreate this pizza toy at home by cutting out toppings from construction paper, or drawing them and cutting them out. Try circles of brown paper for pepperoni, and stripes of red and orange paper for peppers.
Try cutting out pieces of paper that don’t look like a classic pizza topping and let your little one use their imagination to pretend any pizza topping they like.
You can also use our Make Your Own Pizza Resource from Super Simple from a Bumble Nums episode about pizza!
Your little ones can freely make special pizza pies, or you can open up a pretend pizza shop like we did in the classroom!
Pretend Pizza Shop
When your play pizza is ready to go, it’s time to open up a play pizza shop!
For this game you can use a play phone or just use your hands in the shape of a phone. Start with the grown up calling in. Ring ring! Keeping ringing until your little one picks up. Ask to order a pizza and let them know what you’d like on it. Once you pretend to hang up, you can help them make the pizza. Don’t forget all the toppings your customer ordered! Once the pizza is finished, you can pretend to eat it (yummy yummy pizza!) or it can be delivered!
Use the Yummy Yummy Pizza Car Mat from the episode to pretend to deliver the pizzas. Use your fingers to trace the streets to the house, or if you are able to print the car mat on larger paper, you can use a toy car.
This is also a great opportunity to practice colors. We made the houses on the car mat different colors so little ones could practice their colors as they deliver pizzas. When a pizza is ordered, the customer can say “I live in the orange house” or “the purple house”, then little ones can find the correct house on the mat.
Instead of using the car mat, have your little one deliver the pizzas to different areas of the house. Ask the pizza to be delivered to the couch, or the bedroom to make it more active.
Once your little one has made a number of pizzas, they might like to try being the customer and ordering a pizza. Have them call in and place their order and they can help you make the pizza. Ring ring!
Pizza Party
In this episode we sing the song Pizza Party. Watch the original music video.
This song is a great way to follow along when making a real pizza or a play pizza. Sing the song as you create your pizza to know what step comes next!
Village Pizza
In this episode we take a field trip to Village Pizza, a yummy pizza restaurant in Toronto. We learn how pizzas are made in a real pizza shop.
Next time you are in a pizza restaurant picking up pizza with your little one, ask them if they can find some of things we see and learn about during our field trip: pizza oven, apron, pizza peel.
Pizza Box Bean Bag Toss Game
We can reuse our pizza boxes to make a simple bean bag toss game! It is important to clean out the box as well as you can. If you can’t get the box clean enough to your liking, you can ask your local pizza shop if you can purchase an empty pizza box from them next time you order pizza. They might just give you one, too!
Follow our step by step instruction on how to make your own Pizza Box Bean Bag Toss Game complete with your own homemade bean bags.
This game is a great opportunity to practice colors, shapes and numbers in a fun way. You can cut out different shapes to practice shapes, or use the same shape but give each one a different color border to practice colors. You can also give each hole different number to practice numbers! Pick a shape, color or number to aim for and toss away! Talk about the different shapes, colors and numbers as you play for more practice.
We hope you have fun singing, playing, learning, and creating! We love to see photos of our friends having fun in the classroom and of their wonderful creations! You can share them with us a few different ways:
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