Volume 5, Issue 22
December 17, 2007

What treats do your students love? Use our poem and activities to get things "cooking" in your classroom!

Let's think of foods
That we like to eat
Pasta and pizza
Peppermints, sweet!

Pancakes, popcorn
Fill up my plate.
Those are some foods
I think are great!

Susan LaBella
Editor, Early Childhood Education Newsletter

--pizza clipart courtesy of Designed to a T

SUPER SNOWFLAKE
Prepare uncooked long spaghetti in this way:

• Break the long spaghetti in half.
• Place the spaghetti in a plastic bag of white tempera paint.
• Shake to coat the spaghetti with white paint.
• Lay the freshly painted spaghetti out overnight to dry.
  When the spaghetti is dry, give each child a piece of black drawing paper with a pre-drawn circle on it. Distribute paste and a small amount of white spaghetti to each child. Let children paste pieces of spaghetti onto the black paper to create a snowflake.

  A TASTY PIECE OF PIZZA
  Let each child make his/her own pizza vest! Provide a brown paper grocery bag for each child. Cut a hole in the flat bottom of the bag; the child's head will fit through that hole. Cut pizza-slice shapes from the front and back of the bag. (Do this by cutting from the center of the bottom front up to the left corner at the shoulders; then cut from the center bottom to the right corner at the shoulders. Repeat on the back. You will have created two pizza-slice "flaps" of vest with the wide part of each slice at the student's shoulders and the narrow points of the slices down at his or her center beltline. Discard all scraps of bag, including the sides and the parts of the front and back that have been cut away to create the slice.) Let each child use crayons to decorate his/her pizza slices, wear the special vest, and say this little rhyme:

  I'm a special piece of pizza
  Topped with lots of cheese.
  I also have ____(pepperoni, mushrooms, meatballs)
  My favorite, if you please.

  COUNTING MEATBALLS
  Let children create plates of spaghetti using paper plates and yellow yarn. Attach a different number to each plate and invite students to count out and place that many meatballs (pom poms) on top of the spaghetti.

  PASTA SCIENCE
  Fill a measuring cup half full with water. Add uncooked pasta. Encourage children to observe the results. Ask: What happens to the water? Why?

  POPULAR POPCORN
  Ask parents to contribute several kinds of popcorn (buttered, plain, caramel, cheddar). Invite each child to taste each kind and cast a vote for his/her favorite. Record votes on a large bar or picture graph for children to see. Ask: Which kind of popcorn got the most votes? The fewest votes? And so on.

  MMMMM… PANCAKES
  Read to children Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie Paola (Voyager Books). Give pairs of students 10 precut and laminated paper pancakes. Each student in the pair will also need a pencil and piece of writing paper. Invite the pairs of students to measure with pancakes! One student places the number of paper pancakes needed to measure a desk, table, or paintbrush. The other student records the number of pancakes needed to measure each object. When all students have completed measuring, compare and discuss results. Explain why some students' numbers differ.

Check out the following Web sites for additional background and activities.

Read All About Pancakes
Check out this great listing of picture books with a pancake theme.
http://homepages.utoledo.edu/pmany/fungames.html

Pasta Butterflies
Use pasta to teach children about the life cycle of a butterfly. Here is a comprehensive lesson plan.
http://www.alabamawildlife.org/pdf/seedactivities/Seed%20-%20PastaButterfly%20(k-2).pdf

A Day Full of Popcorn
A lesson plan that will help you put a new spin on an ordinary day.
http://ofcn.org/cyber.serv/academy/ace/lang/ceclang/ceclang015.html

How Does Pizza Grow?
Give children an insider's view of where each part of a pizza originates.
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/KidsFarm/PizzaGarden/

Giant Pizza Playground
Share with children this fun place.
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/KidsFarm/PizzaGarden/playground.cfm

Calendar of Coloring Pages
Get a December calendar of coloring pages fpor you to print out and use.
http://www.peppermintlane.com/christmas/coloring/index.html