Monday, November 22, 2010

Monday Morning Math: Make your own pizza manipulative!

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

Math is fun alhamdulillah. Especially when your week starts off with art and pizza! Well, the pizza is not real but still, making it can be lots of fun alhamdulillaah. This is an idea that I got over the weekend at a strange time (there was nothing related to pizza going on!)....lol...but it seemed like it would be so much fun so...I tried it.

This activity is for Kindergarten students (and can be used in grade 1 was well insha'Allaah. It can also be used with preschool students to teach sharing). It helps introduce fractions to students in a fun way. The art part of this activity is a two day project (or for homeschoolers it can be a one day project insha'Allaah). When the art part is done, students use their pizzas to solve the problems in their mini-math workbooks.

First: Students make their pizzas:

To do this you will need:

- Two paper plates per child/student
- Brown, Red, Green and Yellow non-toxic paint
- Markers (optional)
- Real empty, clean pizza box (optional)
- Imagination!

The first step: Students take one of the paper plates and paint it light brown (or any brown you have).

After the brown paint has dried, paint on a layer of red paint. Remind students not to paint the rim of the plate. That is the crust of their pizza. After the red (pizza/tomato sauce) has dried, students paint on a layer of yellow for the cheese. Again, remind students to leave a little of the red showing all the way around insha'Allaah.

Next: Students can use a pencil and very lightly draw in their toppings. If they draw them too darkly, the paint or marker that they use next will not cover the pencil outlines of their toppings.

If using paint, students then paint in their topping outlines with the appropriate colours. If using marker, students colour in their toppings.

 Now, the students use a ruler to draw lines across their pizzas to make the slices

Next, they cut out each slice, using the lines as a guide.

I've set up a way to store these pieces so they don't end up in places I would prefer not to see them *smile*. Using the second paper plate, affix Velcro circles to the backs of each slice of pizza and to the plate (in the appropriate spots). When students are done, they put the pizza back together on the second paper plate and if you've got an empty pizza box from your local pizzeria, they can put it in the box and place it on a shelf insha'Allaah.
This should make it easy to keep your pizza all in one place insha'Allaah


Now, insha'Allaah, students are ready to answer the questions in thier workbooks using this fun to make manipulative!


Enjoy insha'Allaah!

4 comments:

  1. Jazak-Allah Sister. This activity will got great with one our favourite books . . . Pete's A Pizza by William Steig.

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  2. Assalamu alaikum,

    Wa iyaki dear sis. I remember that your family likes this book very much *smile*. I was able to read it and I was only not comfortable with the first part where the little boy was (I don't remember the exact words) angry or upset with the rain because it has prevented him from going out to play. I was trying to think of a way to reword that to read it aloud so children would not learn to be upset with the Qadr of Allaah but learn to say alhamdulillaah in all situations. The rest of the book was funny *smile*.

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  3. as salaamu alaikum wa rahmatullah
    Wow ukhti this is really great, thank you so much for sharing

    ReplyDelete
  4. waalaikum assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,

    Alhamdulillaah wa jazakillahu khayr *smile*.

    ReplyDelete

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