Let’s make some pizza!
Kids in the kitchen! My kids love to help out in the kitchen, whether it’s mixing with a hand-mixer or rolling out dough. Recently, my preschooler was wondering if she could play with dough like she did the last time we were making cookies. We didn’t have cookie dough, but we did have pizza dough! She spent an hour creating her own pizzas…over and over!
PIZZA PRETEND PLAY SUPPLY IDEAS:
- premade pizza dough {or homemade!}
- scissors
- rolling pin
- kid-friendly knife
- flour
We buy the premade pizza dough in the deli/bakery area of the grocery store. Have your little one sprinkle some flour on a clean surface and dump the dough out. After that — play, play, play!
Roll the dough out flat. Use cookie cutters to cut shapes. Cut the dough with scissors or a knife {play dough toys work great!}. Knead the dough. Pretend play with pizza dough can last a long time!
There are so many play to learn skills being used while playing with pizza dough!
Preschoolers are strengthening their fine motor muscles with each roll of the rolling pin, squish of the dough, scissor snip, slice with a knife, and sprinkle when more flour is needed.
It may not be quite as obvious, but gross motor skills and hand-eye coordination are involved with this activity too. My preschooler spent a while tossing her pizza dough into the air and catching it. Watching spinning pizza dough flying in the air also creates lots of giggles!
Colors and counting were also practiced. We added colored pepperoni to our pizza play. Predictions were made as to how many pepperoni could actually fit!
In my classroom or at home, whenever we are learning or doing something new, we usually have a song to go along with it. Our favorite pizza song is to the tune of Bingo.
There is a food I like to eat,
And pizza is its name!
P-I-Z-Z-A
P-I-Z-Z-A
P-I-Z-Z-A
And pizza is its name!
All of this pretend play could easily become dinner! After the dough is rolled out, add sauce and cheese and stick it in the oven for simple homemade pizza. Our pizza dough ended up on the floor quite a bit during the fun {those spinning throws may have just been a little too high at times!}, so our dough did not become anyone’s dinner!
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