Our Homeschooling Journey: Fun With Pizza

Last month, I joined Hive account@needleworkmonday's contest and created the crochet toy pizza for my little girl. She was very excited while I was still working on the pizza, she is even more excited to play with it. To her, it was just a simple game. But to me, it's my way of training her to exercise active listening, understanding instructions, and reviewing directions. If you have a toddler and are having trouble with how to do the teaching through playtime technique, this is one of the examples. (I used to have no idea how I can include some serious lessons in our playtime, now, it comes naturally.)

Pizza Delivery Game

Our game starts with a phone call from me, I am a customer in her pizza parlor, not too far away from my home. Actually, my location, voice, and topping preferences change on each call I make. We use our old phones (batteries removed) for our calls. She even has an opening spiel. After the phone "rings", she would go "Thank you for calling, may I have your order please?" I like how direct to the point she is with her business. No dilly-dallying with this one.

My goal is to make an order of pizza, each time with a different topping, just because. At first, she would "call me back" to ask if I could repeat my order so she would get it right when she delivers them. After a few runs, she acquired the skill of taking instructions, she was able to complete the order without having to ask again.

After she assembles my pizza order, she now proceeds to deliver the pizza to the delivery address. This time, we exercise map instructions and some road navigations. I deliberately drew the houses with distinctive shapes so she can easily remember where exactly she would deliver the pizza. She remembered where she would turn left or turn right, she remembered the landmarks I placed for each delivery place.

As an added practice of imagination, she made her own "pizza delivery car" using her blocks. She had lots of fun with our pizza delivery game until she felt tired of delivering pizzas. We called it a day for our pizza delivery business. There's only one thing left to do. Make a pizza because my little delivery girl got hungry.

No Yeast Pizza

Did you know that there is such a thing as no yeast pizza? I did not know this before. It's a good thing I know this now because this pizza recipe is just as yummy minus the waiting for the dough to rise. Once you're done kneading, just add the sauce, cheese, and toppings, bake, and you're good to go.

There are only three ingredients needed for this no yeast pizza recipe. All you need is about 2 cups of flour, a little bit of baking powder, water, and salt. The goal is to make the mixture clumpy and not runny so it would be easy to knead. If it's a bit too dry, you just need to add some more water.

Since my little one is still highly interested in the pizza-making business, I got her involved in the process. This time, she learned measurements, following instructions through the step-by-step procedure, and I gave her all the fun in kneading and punching the dough.

I couldn't make the pizza dough round, so I decided I'll make it fit the baking pan, in a rectangular shape. She wouldn't have it. She kept arguing that pizza should be round and that I should give it another try. I can see she learned the art of encouragement. In my defense, I only used a small glass canister as a rolling pin.

The only difference about this pizza is that it has no yeast in its dough. I pretty much added the same toppings available in the fridge. Bake the pizza as you usually do, about 200 degrees Celsius, for around 15 minutes, and the pizza is done.

And that's it for the no yeast, quick pizza. All in all, there's really not much difference, the crust isn't as fluffy as that with the yeast, but it tastes just the same. Needless to say, my little one had lots of fun with our pizza activities.

_{Hive account@romeskie is a full-time stay-at-home mom to a homeschooling toddler. Loves crocheting as a hobby. Maintains a mini food forest, aiming to grow more to achieve that farm-to-table homesteading. Learned how to cook after leaving the corporate world to take care of her family and is now starting to acquire basic baking skills. Learn more about her adventures and misadventures in the world of motherhood.
Connect with her through her Facebook Page: The Leftie Crocheter and on Instagram. Feel free to subscribe to her Youtube Channel: The Leftie Crocheter}