Exemplar 4: Mathematics 

Table of Contents
Page R6 (continued)

Teacher's Favorite: Pizza!

This hands-on activity will allow all of the students in your classroom to participate in a class that builds their understanding of math concepts.

What you'll need:

  • paper plates
  • construction paper (red, green, yellow, black, brown, etc.)
  • scissors
  • glue
  • ruler
  • black marker

Mark paper plates ahead of time with lines, using ruler as a guide, marking pizzas into different quantities of slices: some into two, three, four, six, eight, etc. Provide students with activity materials to make a pizza. Guide students through the process of cutting out shapes of different colors for toppings and gluing them onto paper plate “crusts.” You may want to provide a few models of completed pizzas both cut and uncut. When pizzas are complete, have students cut the slices of their pizza along the lines marked. Once pizzas are cut into slices, encourage students to share their slices and explore creating new pizzas made up of each others’ slices. Guide student thinking about fractions by pointing out different fraction combinations. Ask students to find different combinations that make up a new whole pizza. Allow students time to enjoy taking their pizzas apart and putting them back together, while you encourage thinking and talking about fractions.