4 ways to incorporate learning in a pizza party

There are many ways you can incorporate learning into a pizza party for your kids and their friends. Here are just four ways of doing so.

• Share the history of pizza with party guests while you preheat the oven. Flatbreads with various toppings were originally introduced in Greece, but quickly became a favourite food of the citizens of Naples, Italy, who food that could be made cheaply and eaten fast.
• Flatbreads were also an easy food to throw together and sell on the street. Around 1889, Italian Queen Margherita tried a pizza while travelling through her kingdom. Although flatbreads were considered "peasant food," the queen fell in love with pizza, and the tasty food was soon offered throughout the world.

• Did those tomatoes for the sauce come from your own backyard? The herbs for the sauce from a pot in your kitchen? Where was the premade crust made before it came to your party? Which location in North America makes the most cheese?
• The kids will have a fun time guessing the answers to all these questions. Ask them to come up with a few of their own.

• Since pizza dough needs to spend some time in the refrigerator before baking, make the dough for mini pizzas in advance, and tell the children about the science behind pizza making while they roll out their dough and add toppings. You can also purchase pre-made pizza dough in a roll from the grocery store.
• Talk about the basic ingredients of dough, including yeast, flour, and water. Mention that salt, shortening, and a bit of sugar can also be added to increase flavour and make the dough easier to handle.

• What a yummy way to learn math! Once the pizzas are cooked and cooled, cut one into four slices and explain how 4/4 is the same as one whole.
• Move two slices to the side to demonstrate 1/2, then cut all four slices in half again to show 8/8 (one whole).
• Ask the kids to tell you how many slices are left, and how many more will be to feed everyone one more slice or two more slices.