School Time: Pizza Week

This week started off like all the weeks these last couple of months. I had no idea what we were going to do. I have not been having a successful time with Five in a Row. The girls really enjoy hands on projects and I was just getting burned out trying to come up with appropriate projects. I guess it didn't help that I was trying to follow the baker's journey from How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman.  There were books for a few of the countries that our baker travels to listed in Vol 1 of FIAR. But I had to come up with books of my own to work from for other countries. I have been trying to get back into the swing of things. A couple of weeks ago I was going to focus on the book The Snowy Day because it was snowing on Monday. Then all the snow melted. There went that idea. I was going to transition from The Snowy Day to Katy and the Big Snow which is a FIAR book. I am hoping the snow we have been getting will stick around, because I hope to row that book, not this coming week, but the next week.
This week we had a Pizza Theme. It started out with a simple suggestion from daddy to have a Make Your Own Pizza Muffin Tin.

Then I decided to focus on "Pizza" for the entire week. I planned on at least one meal a day having some sort of pizza. Plus I had some activity ideas and crafts. And I put a bunch of Pizza books on hold. 

On Tuesday we didn't do much because of Play Group. But we did have pizza for dinner. I was planning something different actually, but I was exhausted and hubby found a coupon deal for Pizza Hut, so he ordered a meal pack. 

On Wednesday we had leftover pizza for lunch and then for dinner I planned a Dessert Brownie Pizza. I made this our Kids and a Mom in the Kitchen post for the week. 

This was delicious, but doesn't keep well because of the strawberries and the bananas. So, unless you have a big family I would suggest making this to take as a dish to pass. We ended up throwing some out because we couldn't eat it fast enough.

I had an idea of a craft I wanted to make. I remembered seeing it a while back on another blog. Fortunately I was able to find it quite easily by heading over to Google and searching for "Pizza Craft." Amy over at Crunchy and Green  did this craft for a Pizza slice over a year ago.  We needed brown paper for the bottom crust, a paper towel roll for the crust and red paper for the sauce. 

While the older girls cut out their pizza triangles, Hannah glued together the pieces I had already cut out for her. 

As you can see, Amelia's cutting skills have really improved.

After the girls glued the sauce onto the crust they were able to add some toppings that I had cut out.  Tabitha also wanted grated parmesan cheese, so I used a hole punch to make some dots from white paper.

Hannah actually had more on her's at one point, then she started pulling it off and putting it in her mouth.

After they finished their pizzas (except for the paper towel crusts) they decided to cook it in the "oven."  Tabitha decided it needed about an hour to cook.

It came out before that hour was done.

On Thursday we had Breakfast for Dinner Thursday, so I made a Breakfast Pizza. I found the recipe at allrecipes.com. It was pretty tasty. Thought the girls didn't like it.

And Friday we had Grilled Pizza Sandwiches.

We read some great books about pizza.

Pete's a Pizza by William Steig is about a little boy named Pete who gets made into a pizza by his dad when the weather prohibits him from going out to play. Lovely imaginative book. 

Grandpa and Me by Karen Katz is a lift the flap board book. The grandfather and little girl make a pizza. The children enjoyed lifting the flaps to find the missing objects.

One Pizza, One Penny by K. T. Hao is a longer picture book about two friends, Ben Bear and Chris Croc who enjoy sharing their time and food. Ben Bear makes delicious pizzas and Chris Croc makes yummy cakes. After the richest man on earth pays Chris Croc for a slice of cake he thinks he needs to sell his cakes and Ben Bear decides he needs to sell his pizzas. They don't want to share anymore. 

Curious George and the Pizza is adapted from the Curious George Film series and edited by Margret Rey and Alan J. Shalleck.  George and his friend go out for pizza for dinner. Of course George gets curious and tries to make a pizza, making a big mess. The owner of the pizzeria ends up forgiving him after he helps him deliver a pizza. 

And we played Amelia's new game, Stick-to-it! Phonics Games: Short Vowels which she received for Christmas. I purchased this from Educational Insights with the gift card I won toward the end of the year. This game has a felt game board with a pizza pictured on both sides. The one side has word endings and the back has pictures. It also comes with 2 self stick balls. I will share more about this and Tabitha's game we won in a later post. I just thought Pizza Week was a great time to get out the game. 

I plan to continue our Pizza theme this coming week. I have some other activities we didn't get to. So, wouldn't you know that it would actually snow this weekend and I could do my snow theme. Oh well, winter will be around for a while.