I've never done a pizza storytime before and it really was a blast and the kids were great (except for an incident at the very end - detailed at the end of this post).
Signs (ASL) for Pizza: See signs here
Memory Box: Snake from "Hi, Pizza Man!"
Books:
Pizza for Sam by Mary Labatt. This is a begin-to-read book so it's fairly small but the story is still cute. I made props and used this puppet to bring the book to life and make it easier to "see".
This works best with a "helper" puppeteering Sam because she has a lot of emotion and actions in this book like jumping up on the chair, sniffing, flopping on the ground, and feeling disappointed, hopeful, and happy.
Meet Sam. She's just a puppy trying to figure out what puppy should eat.
Her owners have a party and Sam gets caught a few times sniffing out the snacks the guests have brought.
Her owner gives her dog food, but Yuck! Dog food does not seem like a good food for puppies. Poor Sam.
When everyone is distracted, look who gets her paws on the pizza!
"Hi, Pizza Man!" by Virginia Walter. When the pizza man comes, we say, "Hi, Pizza Man!" But what if it wasn't a pizza man? What if it was a pizza woman or a pizza cat or a pizza snake?...
This is a super interactive book that is out of print so I bought a used copy from amazon and think it's definitely worth it for a pizza storytime!
Music:
"Pizza Dance" by Laughing Pizza. Listen here This song is so cheesy (haha) but really fun!
There are lots of versions, but I used the one above. It's really fun to act out the building of a pizza in this call-and-response song and then the pizza's sad demise at the end:
......"Out of the oven
Into the box
Into the car
and upside down
I am a pizza.... dropped on the ground
I was a pizza
I was the best
I was a pizza
Now I'm a mess"
Letter of the Day: Pp for pizza
Pepperoni also starts with P... which led into a "discussion" about the other toppings that can go on pizza... which led into our last activity.
Flannel Activity:
I read the poem "A Pizza the Size of the Sun" by Jack Prelutsky and we imagined how big this pizza really is!
Read poem here
Afterwards, we managed to arrange the kids into a large enough circle to build a large (70") pizza in the middle. My awesome co-worker helped build the pizza as the kids recalled ingredients from the poem (pizza dough, sauce, cheese, red and green peppers, mushrooms, peas, sausage, olives, tomatoes).
Note to fellow programmers:
Then we sang the goodbye song and everything was great until in a lapse of judgement I told the kids that if they were gentle they could touch the big pizza and naively imagined them pretending to eat it while parents took pictures... but they descended on it like" zombies" - literally tearing the props apart. So unless you have a mellow group, I would leave this prop as HANDS OFF!
I love Pizza too! Your giant pizza is awesome!! Looks good enough to eat.
ReplyDeleteOne fun thing we do is we read the book "Pete's a Pizza". Afterwards, we turn our kids into a pizza. We cut out pizza toppings from paper, like you did for your giant pizza. But we sprinkle the pizza toppings onto the kids. We ask who wants cheese, pepperoni, etc. Then, we say its time to chop up our pizzas, and that's when the parents get to tickle their kids, hence the chopping or cutting of our pizzas. This follows the book "Pete's a Pizza", which is where we got the idea. I love this storytime, and your giant pizza is adorable! Oriental Trading makes a great sticker sheet of a pizza to make for a craft too!
ReplyDeleteThis is Fantastic! I do a similar thing using our parachute and the book Pizza Pat we act out each part of the story and pretend to eat up the parachute at the end:) I am using your Pizza Dance song from Laughing pizza next time!!
ReplyDeleteHow do you do your snake memory box activity?
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ReplyDelete