Kids Counting Pizza Craft Activity

Learning to count is an essential skill children need to develop for success with numbers and operations in elementary school and beyond. In this fun hands-on activity, you and your child will create a paper plate pizza to practice counting to 20.

Learning Goals

This activity will help your child:

• Practice counting in sequence from one to 20
• Apply one-to-one correspondence in counting objects
• Use number words and write numerals to label quantities

Materials

• Paper Plate
• Red crayon or marker
• Brown crayon or marker
• Construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue

Vocabulary

• One-to-one correspondence means matching one and only one number word to each item being counted.
• Numerals represent a number, such as 1, 2, or 3. In this activity, your child will practice writing numerals 1 through 20.
• Number words are spoken, written, or signed word that represents a quantity, such as "one," "two," or "three." In this activity, your child will practice counting aloud from one through 20.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Make your pizza crust. Color the edges of your paper plate with brown markers or crayons.

2. Make your pizza sauce. Color the center of your paper plate with red markers or crayons. Awesome-sauce!

3. Prepare your toppings. Cut out 10 triangles for your cheese, five circles for your pepperoni and five rectangles for your favorite topping. Go traditional or be silly! Then, sort the toppings. Ask your child, "Which group of toppings has more? How do you know?"

4. Write numbers one through 20 on your toppings and glue them into your pizza pie.

5. Count up all your ingredients. You can ask:

• "How many cheese triangles? Let’s count and see: 1 cheese, 2 cheese, 3 cheese, 4 cheese, 5 cheese triangles!"
• "How many pepperoni circles? 1 pepperoni, 2 pepperonis, 3 pepperonis, 4 pepperonis, 5 pepperoni circles."
• "How many worm rectangles? 1 worm, 2 worm, 3 worm, 5 worm rectangles!"
• "How many do we have altogether? 10 cheeses + 5 pepperonis + 5 worms = 20 ingredients!"

Keep the Conversation Going

• With your paper plate pizza, use your imagination and pretend to be a chef in your pizza parlor. How many slices of pizza would you like? Four slices of pizza? Cut your pizza plate into four slices! That’s a lot of pizza!
• Make a real-life pizza pie with dough, cheese and any ingredients you like (minus the worms!) Be sure to count to 20 when you add your ingredients.

Book Suggestions

"The Last Marshmallow / El último malvavisco" (Ages 3-6) by Grace Lin
Time for cocoa! Olivia and Mei have three big marshmallows to share. Olivia gets one, and Mei gets one. How will they share the last marshmallow? This book will introduce your child to number sense and division.

Corresponding Standards

California Preschool Learning Foundations

• Number Sense 1.0 Understanding number and quantity

Head Start Early Learning Outcome Framework

• Goal P-MATH 1.Child knows number names and the count sequence.

California Common Core State Standards

• CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.CC.A.2 Count forward beginning from a given number within the known sequence (instead of having to begin at 1).
• CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.CC.A.3 Write numbers from 0 to 20. Represent a number of objects with a written numeral 0-20 (with 0 representing a count of no objects).