Preschool Cooking Lesson: Make Mini Pizzas & Learn About Measurement & Shapes

Preschool Cooking Lesson: Make Mini Pizzas & Learn About Measurement & Shapes
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Measurement

As you talk about cooking, stress with students why it is important to make exact measurements when following a recipe. Copy a recipe on a piece of chart paper and go through it step by step, explaining how each is an exact measure. Give some examples of when it is possible to estimate a measurement.

When it comes to understanding measurement concepts, primary focus should on becoming familiar with customary units of measure. With cooking, this includes cups, teaspoons, and tablespoons. If you have a sand, water, or rice table, you could use measuring cups and spoons. In utilizing these items during play, the students may become more familiar with what each looks like. As they enter Kindergarten and First Grade, students are expected to make estimates of what unit they would use to measure a certain item. This type of play can help with those estimation skills.

Pizza

Using a pizza shape, you can review many different basic preschool skills. Make a large circle that will be your pizza. You can even cover it with red paper or color it red to look like sauce. Then, if you are reviewing colors, provide a selection of different colored circles for your students. Have each student roll a die (getting in counting practice as well) and then give them a color. They can then choose that many circles of their color to top the pizza with. If you are working on letters or even shapes, you can provide copies of that letter or shape and follow the same process.

Snack

The students can make mini-pizzas for themselves for snack. Using English muffins, have each student top the muffin with pizza sauce and cheese. Then provide them with a variety of toppings. Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes, until the cheese is bubbly.

Songs

I Wish I Were a Pepperoni Pizza (Sung to the Oscar Mayer theme song)

Oh, I wish I were a pepperoni pizza,

This is what I’d truly like to be.

For if I were a pepperoni pizza,

Then everyone would be in love with me.

*Repeat, and each time substitute a different topping.

Pizza Song (Sung to “If You’re Happy and You Know it”)

If you want to eat some pizza, raise your hand. If you want to eat some pizza, raise your hand.

If you like bubbly cheese, then just say “Pizza, please!” If you want to eat some pizza, raise your hand.

Tasting

Explain to students that your tongue is where you taste all of your food. The front tip of the tongue is where you taste most of the sweet flavors. On either side of the tip, you can taste salty foods. Along the sides of your tongue you are most sensitive to sour flavors. And the middle-back of the tongue is where you will taste bitter flavors.

Provide students a large photo or drawing of a tongue with the areas above labeled. Cut out some pictures of food and show them to the class. Talk about how each one tastes (sweet, sour, bitter, salty) and then pick where on the tongue you would most likely taste the item.

This post is part of the series: Preschool Cooking Lessons

The activities in these articles all focus on a cooking theme for preschoolers.

  1. Preschool Cooking Lessons
  2. Cooking in the Preschool Classroom: Make a Pizza!