Friday, March 4, 2011

Pizza













Pizza Party Time!  We love making and eating pizza in this house, a particularly fun activity following pizza-themed story time.  Here are a few of our favorite pizza books:


The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza...what a great retelling of an old classic  Pizza Party! is a good one for kids learning how to read; Theo reads it all the way through on his own.  The non-fiction Hold the Anchovies appeals to me in a proustian sense: Sun-ripened tomatoes, cheese from cows, mushrooms from damp wet places and more come together to form the ultimate meal. Mmm, the universe in a pizza.

If you happen to have anyone working on fractions, there's a fun and free game making pizzas here.  I won't tell you how long I spent playing this.

I also found a really cool pop art project on youtube, check it out:  Pop Art Pizza Video (Perry Milou).  Here are a few pictures of ours. My little artist wanted a pizza with white sauce.  Who am I to argue?




As for music,  Charlotte Diamond has a great bi-lingual (English and French) pizza song, "I Am a Pizza" on her album, Ten Carrot Diamond.  You can download the whole album or just the one MP3; we got the CD at the library.  We also get a real kick out of the song "Pizza Pizza Pizza" on the Hi-5 Jump and Jive CD, another library find.  Ditto the MP3 download for the individual song.



Of course the number one pizza poem in the whole world is A Pizza the Size of the Sun, by Jack Prelutsky, found in the book of the same name.  Mouth-watering!


I found a lot of other little pizza songs online, but many of them stretched a little too hard for rhyme and meter... here are the ones I liked best, found at Kinderpond and Surlalune Storytime:

Pizza Song... (Twinkle, Twinkle)
Pizza, pizza it's a treat.
Pizza, pizza is fun to eat!
Ooey-gooey cheese so yummy.
Crunchy crust goes in my tummy.
Pizza, pizza it's a treat. 
Pizza, pizza is fun to eat! 

Pizza Man


Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, pizza man 
[Clap hands together.]
Make me a pizza as fast as you can 
[Shake finger.]
Roll it 
[Roll as if with rolling pin.]
Toss it 
[Pretend to toss dough in the air.]
Sprinkle it with cheese 
[Sprinkling motions.]
Put it in the oven 
[Pushing motion with hands.]
And bake it fast, please!


Theo's pre-school teacher made a really cool play pizza out of felt.  We're lucky to already have the Melissa and Doug pizza party toy, instead. 




Another fun book to read and then watch on the Scholastic video is Pete's A Pizza.  The boys loved acting this one out after we read and watched it.  I found the video on Netflix.






Two more books for extra credit: 

Dragon Pizzeria is perfect for fractured-fairytale fans.  One magic-bean pizza up the beanstalk, please!

Pizza for the Queen presents the history of the "Margharita Pizza."  It has lots of words and is better for older picture-book readers.  It's not particularly suited to group storytime for the younger crowd, though.












What does Mama like to do in support of pizza theme?  Put the kids to bed and watch Julia Roberts (and young Matt Damon) in Mystic Pizza!


Check back next week for St. Patrick's Day fun!

7 comments:

  1. There is also a CD of the Jack Prelutsky book with many of the poems turned into songs including "Pizza the size of the Sun". My kids love the entire CD. We have the "Pizza Party" book too. Great idea pulling it all together- I will have to try out this theme with my kiddos.

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  2. awesome, thanks! I'll look for it. :)

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  3. Love it! I totally need to borrow some of your awesome ideas :)

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  4. Hi Briana! Thanks for following SF kid stuff! I love your blog! I used to play "I am a Pizza" for my preschool classes and the kids LOVED it!

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  5. Love the blog, Briana! We did a whole unit on Pizza when I taught Kindergarten. Some of my favorite pizza books are:

    Hi Pizza Man! by Virginia Walter
    Pete's a Pizza by William Steig
    Sam's Pizza by David Pelham (the book is in a pizza box, but warning there are lots of gross bugs and slugs in the pizza. We had to throw out our copy as all the flaps had gotten ripped off)
    How Pizza Came to Our Town by Dayal Kaur Khalsa
    Pizza for Breakfast by Maryann Kovalski (a modern fable of basketball players, pizza and the search for happiness)
    Little Nino's Pizzeria by Karen Barbour
    and finally
    The King of Pizza by Sylvester Sanzari

    Pizza is so much fun!

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  6. We love making homemade pizza at our house. What a lot of great book suggestions! Thanks for letting me know about your blog. :)

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  7. wow I love how you cover a variety of subjects based on a topic. Pizza making is always a favourite around here :)

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