Free printable pizza recipes for kids for Pi Day: nutrition and cooking science lesson plans

Hello my friends of the Omschool! Teacher Omi wishing you Happy National Pizza Day with some kid-friendly pizza recipes and cooking lesson plans! Pi Day is coming up on March 14, and pizza making is a perfect Pi Day activity. Pizza making lesson plans are adaptable to most all ages so are great for homeschool families as well as traditional school classrooms. I've included literature-based connections. 

Pizza potluck. Ask each family to send in their favorite pizza ingredients or send home a note having them list them, then purchase. Make sure the usual toppings are covered:  Pepperoni, sausage, bell peppers, mushrooms, onions, garlic, olives, bacon, ham, cheese, mozzarella cheese and pineapple. Add in some oddballs, too, like figs and goat cheese. Give each student a personal size crust to decorate as she wished. Make sure to have gluten-free pizza crust if you have any kids with gluten intolerance. Cooking lesson plans include having students prep the toppings by dicing peppers, slicing mushrooms and baking pizza. You can use a toaster oven for pizza making lesson plans. Read Stone Soup to show how sharing simple ingredients makes a feast. 

Pizza Math connections. Preschool pizza lesson plans include exploration of shape and color. Discuss cube shaped peppers, circle pepperoni. Cut cheese slices into triangles, rectangles and squares. Show students how to make fractions with a cheese slice by cutting it diagonally in two, then diagonally again in quarters and so one. Demonstrate fraction pie by cutting pizza in half, quarters and eighths. Or make square pizzas cut into 12 or 16 pizzas. Teach Pi Day lesson plans on geometry by reading Sir Cumference and the Isle of Immiter and Sir Cumference as the Dragon of Pi (by Cindy Neuschwander) All the books in the Sir Cumference series make great math lesson plans with their visuals and hands-on activities. 

Pizza clocks. Teach telling time by making analog clocks from pizza. Cut numbers out of any topping you wish or write numbers in food grade marker on pepperoni and arrange in clock face. Use pepper strips for short and long hand. Ask students to show different times on their pizza clocks and then have a "good time" eating! 

Rainbow Pizza. Make vegetable or fruit pizzas (with shortbread crust and cream cheese). Encourage kids to make a rainbow arranging various colored fruits and vegetables in a spectrum band. Use apples, strawberries, raspberries or watermelon, mandarin oranges, peaches or cantaloupe, pineapple or banana slices, kiwi or green grape slices, blueberries, purple grapes or blackberries. Read 
What Makes a Rainbow? by Betty Schwartz. 

Pizza Cooking Challenge. Assign students to create their most awesome pizza recipes and have a classroom tasting. Award points based on artistic creativity, taste, frugality and resourcefulness. Do it like a mystery ingredient cooking challenge where each student must incorporate one surprise food item into his pizza. Or encourage students to experiment with unusual ingredients or pizza shapes. My favorite is a cooking challenge for using up as many leftovers as possible and repurposing them into a delicious recipe. Read the Amazon (free download) ebook Scraps to Snacks: A Cookbook for Kids by Kids to Reduce, Reuse and Re-eat.