We have recently started exploring in the kitchen with Rosie, and she just loves it! Combining that with her love of pizza, and given that Valentine's Day is near, we decided to make heart shape pizza's for dinner last night. This was such a fun family activity!
You can make your own dough, but I was going for simplicity here, so I just bought pre-made pizza dough from the refridgerated food section of my local grocery store. Most stores have a wide selection, including whole wheat varieties. We dyed the cheese a reddish pink color to fit the theme of Valentine's Day. We also cut the pepperoni's into heart shapes.
We gave Rosie a rolling pin just her size, and her own ball of dough to work with.
She was thrilled that her and Daddy were rolling out the dough together
Then she noticed that Daddy's rolling pin was bigger. Uh-oh!
Daddy didn't mind trading though
Jewel loved watching!
She was eager to take everything in
Making pizza is quite a sensory experience!
Rosie had the opportunity to explore the varying textures of flour, dough, and cheese.
There is also the opportunity to build autonomy by letting your child pick their own toppings.
Painting the sauce on was a great artistic experience
I had planned to use red pepper to write love on the pizza.
Once we realized it blended in a little too much, we tried an orange pepper. However it still didn't stand out quite as much as I would have liked. Next time, we will try it with a green pepper.
Making pizza as a family is so easy and so much fun! It has been my favorite cooking activity that we have done with Rosie and Jewel so far. It presented opportunites to build her vocabulary. Rolling the dough and handling the ingredients helped build fine motor development. There were many smells, and Rosie enjoyed tasting all the ingredients as she created her edible work of art. This simple activity really brought us together as a family. Rosie was so proud of her heart shaped pizza, and was so excited that she had helped prepare dinner! She did a marvelous job too, as it was delicious!
We share fun kids activities several times a week!
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