Pizza Parlor Day

What's better than playing Pizza Parlor on the patio with real dough and making your own pizzas for lunch?? Nothing according to these kids! Another ALL day activity on the patio that kept the kids busy, happy, and creative.

Our make shift pizza parlor on the patio: little kitchen, play grill, chairs, picnic table (used as another pizza making surface), and a banquet table used as the main making surface. I put step stools around the table for the kids not tall enough to see.

The pizza toppings (there's also sparkly "gems" found at the Dollar Tree under all of those fuzzies).

I brought out the play pizza sets we had in the play food.

I made the dough (which is my play dough recipe: flour, cornstarch, water, and oil) extra oily so the dough wouldn't stick to their hands too much. I also put the hose near the patio for easy hand rinsing since these kids don't like dirty hands.

The kids got very creative decorating their "pizzas."

Max's smiley face pizza.

These pizzas were all waiting to bake in the play oven.

After 3 hours of playing Pizza Parlor, I had the kids come in, wash their hands of course, and make their own real pizzas for lunch. The kids have been asking to do this for a few weeks and loved putting their toppings on. I used tortillas instead of dough because it cooks a bit quicker (and with 10 pizzas to bake, time mattered!). 

I laid out pepperonis, banana peppers, green peppers, black olives, and cheese to put on their pizzas. So things didn't get too messy, I put the sauce on for them. A couple of the younger kids were unsure about making their own pizzas, so I had to help them. Otherwise, all of the kids did a great job putting their toppings on.

Each pizza was very unique, which made it easy to keep track of who made which pizza!

Before naps, we read the books "Curious George and the Pizza" and talked about where pizza came from (thank you Wikipedia). As soon as nap/rest time ended, the kids ran back outside to continue making pizzas in their Pizza Parlor. 

I love these all day activities that keep the kids extra busy and interested (way less work for me other than the prepping portion of it). Our next theme day will be Cupcake Shop.