Food Curriculum, Day Nine

Today-like Tuesday-is so much fun that I can hardly contain myself! This is likely to be your students’ favorite theme in your food unit-PIZZA! The book for this theme is Hi, Pizza Man by Virginia Walter and Ponder Goembel. Your students will have a great time imitating the sounds that all of the different animals in the book make! Of course, you will sing “Do You Know the Pizza Man?”-but another song that I always sing with my class (not just during pizza theme!) is “I am a Pizza” from the CD 10 Carrot Diamond by Charlotte Diamond. This song has a corresponding book that your students will also love….it is sure to be the biggest hit in your classroom. You can find this CD at www.N-E-N.com.

The art activity is another VERY cute, fun project. We’ll be making pizzas today! Give your students the thin cardboard circles that they cut out during fine motor time yesterday. Have them request paint using verbalizations, switches, or Boardmaker symbols, then have them paint almost to the edges of their circle using a very thin layer or the red paint. Next, have them glue yellow shredded paper to the circle. They will need quite a bit of glue and not too much shredded paper, or the paper won’t stick! Finally, they get to add their “toppings.” You can provide Boardmaker symbols of all of the “toppings” that you have provided (like I said yesterday, I do white and green slivers of paper for onions and peppers, red circles for pepperonis, and mushroom cutouts). Have the students request their toppings either verbally, using a communication device, or using a picture, them have them glue their toppings onto their pizza! Once dry, you can hang these up and they are sure to attract lots of attention!

A fun fine motor activity to do for the two days that you are talking about pizza is to have a “playdough pizza party.” Provide playdough in lots of colors-red, yellow, green, white, brown-plus rolling pins and round cookie cutters. Have your students use the playdough to make pizza.

For math, have your students vote on which pizza toppings are their favorite! Graph their votes on your classroom graph and talk about which is the most and which is the least popular.