As a part of our restaurant investigation we made our own pizza at kinder room with Kathy, our chef. We put two tables together and children sat around. Kathy made toppings and sauce. The choice of toppings was based on children preferences during group time discussion. Children were offered to choose what to top up their pizzas with.
Before that we talked about what is pizza and how can we make pizzas. Kathy showed children all the toppings and asked if they know which one do they know. Children were very confident with naming salami, cheese, ham, pineapple. They needed some help remembering capsicum.
What do we put on our pizza? – we asked children first.
- Cheese! – said Child A
- Sauce, – said Child B.
What is that, Kathy? – asked Child A pointing at tomato sauce.
That’s tomato sauce.
“My dad likes this sauce” – said Child B.
So children spread sauce on their pizzas and started to choose toppings. They used thongs to pick up ham, salami, mushrooms, pineapple and cheese.
My pizza is going to be a burger! – Child A folded his pitta bread as a burger and pretended to eat it.
When pizzas were all done we put it in the oven, cleaned the table and put our new placement on the table.
After 5 minutes our little pizzas were ready to eat. It was so good to make our own lunch. Child A, Child B, Child C were so happy with experience they asked to make chocolate cake with Kathy next week.
EYLF Learning Outcomes
Children have become more confident in cooking in a group, they displayed curiosity, enthusiasm and persistence during making their pizzas.
Children resourced their own learning through connecting with Kathy and other educators, by asking questions and sharing their ideas and knowledge about pizza making, food ingredients and cooking process.
One of the goals of the experience was learning more about nutrition, healthy cooking and making our own lunch. Children deepened their understanding of pizza making, ingredients we use to make pizza. Another goal was to provide children with opportunity to make a choice and be active participants in making their lunch from the ingredients they’ve earlier decided upon.