Hello, my name is Cindy O’Brien. I live in beautiful Northeast Pennsylvania USA. I have a home daycare with 6 children. We have all been enjoying a Pizza and Pasta theme over the last week. It's one that we do each year and is always a firm favourite with the children. Here are some of the highlights from all the fun we have been having.
Pizza & Pasta Shop
For dramatic role play I transformed our train table into a pizza and pasta making area.
Felt pizza crusts with all the fixings were available for the children to create personal pizzas for themselves or their friends.
There were emptied cans of tomato sauce, olives, diced tomatoes, pizza sauce, cheese and anything related to pizza and pasta were available for role play fun.
I created a brick pizza oven with a cardboard box for them to slide their pizzas in and out. Of course pizza boxes were available for take out.
Most materials were gathered from the kitchen for the children to use. Other items were purchased from the dollar store.
I used cut up ‘spaghetti colored’ yarn for the pasta and filled a big pot with it. The children could use the colander and spaghetti tongs to dish up bowls of pasta.
A bowl of brown pom-poms served as the meatballs. Chef hats, aprons and menus completed the ‘restaurant’. I even found a fake loaf of Italian bread to put in a basket. It was a great hands on learning setting all round. Lots to see and do! The children really enjoyed getting stuck in.
Felt pizza crusts with all the fixings were available for the children to create personal pizzas for themselves or their friends.
There were emptied cans of tomato sauce, olives, diced tomatoes, pizza sauce, cheese and anything related to pizza and pasta were available for role play fun.
I created a brick pizza oven with a cardboard box for them to slide their pizzas in and out. Of course pizza boxes were available for take out. Most materials were gathered from the kitchen for the children to use. Other items were purchased from the dollar store.
I used cut up ‘spaghetti colored’ yarn for the pasta and filled a big pot with it. The children could use the colander and spaghetti tongs to dish up bowls of pasta.
A bowl of brown pom-poms served as the meatballs. Chef hats, aprons and menus completed the ‘restaurant’. I even found a fake loaf of Italian bread to put in a basket. It was a great hands on learning setting all round. Lots to see and do! The children really enjoyed getting stuck in.
Sensory Bin
Our sensory bin was filled with multi colored different shaped pasta for the children to scoop, dump, sort and explore. There were empty (clean) cans of pasta sauce that were used for filling and dumping along with mini colanders and silver spoons. Brown pom-poms were scattered around for meatballs.
Each child brought their favorite box of pasta shape and picked their favorite color for it to be dyed. We filled zip sandwich bags ½ full of pasta, squirted some scented hand sanitizer and a big squirt of food coloring or liquid watercolors, closed the bag and shook it really well.
We spread it onto paper to dry. They were thrilled to find ‘their pasta’ in the bin. This pasta was also used to make patterns and collage pictures.
We spread it onto paper to dry. They were thrilled to find ‘their pasta’ in the bin. This pasta was also used to make patterns and collage pictures.
Pizza and Pasta Learning Centres.
Throughout the week different tray activities (on a pizza pan of course) were offered during free play time. We also had many pizza games such as Pizza Mania, Pizza Pick Up and Pizza Balance . We played and we read many pizza stories and sang fun pizza and pasta songs Our favorite book was Pete’s a Pizza because we acted it out.
Pizza Play Dough
I followed my favorite play dough recipe and added dried minced garlic and basil to it to create a pizza scented play dough. We used pie pans to roll it out. The children had fun creating little pizzas, using a rolling pin and using a pizza cutter with it. The room smelled wonderful!
Pizza and Pasta making
Of course we had many opportunities to make our own pizza, make home made bread sticks, and have a pasta buffet using our left over pasta. The children sampled different sauces on their pasta and loved helping themselves to the buffet to create their meal.
Field Trip
We went to the local Pizza Parlor and were able to make and eat our own pizza
Thank you for joining us again Cindy! It's great to see all the fun adventures you have all been up to! It's always a pleasure to have you here at Learning and Exploring Through Play!
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