Here is a game we haven't played with for some time. It was requested yesterday
and enjoyed every bit as much as if it was new! When I made this game we had been
working with counting and one to one correspondence. When she had that concept
down pat I wanted to focus on getting her to recognize the actual numbers 1, 2,
3....
So..... I did the best thing possible - made a PIZZA game. This is a modified
idea I saw on the web. The web idea calls for rolling the die and 1 = crust 2 =
sauce 3= cheese 4,5,6 are toppings. Obviously you can't play until you roll a 1
and 2. I didn't like that and they also worked in felt which I didn't want to do
either. So what did I do???
I decided that a correct answer would earn you whatever you needed to assemble
your pizza. I have several 9 inch cardboard circles from a local bakery.
Each
player gets a circle board for use as the crust. I cut red construction paper
into circles smaller than the crust by about 1/2 inch to be the
"sauce". Our cheese is simply yellowish yarn cut into small strips.
Our onions are rings made from sturdy white art paper. Pepperoni is made from a
dark red paper. Our mushrooms are on gold paper and we also have brown sausage
shapes. I picked these toppings because hubby could draw them.
I made a die with numbers instead of dots. IF you correctly identify the number
rolled you choose a topping. To make it harder for my 8 year old [who found this
game quite fun] I made a die with roman numerals and gave him simple math drill
questions where the answers are 1 - 6.
Another way to make this adaptable for older children is to have them roll the
die and if it lands on 3 have them give:
A subtraction problem with 3 as the answer.
A problem with 3 as an addend.
A number that can be evenly divided by 3.
When we play this game they jump into impromptu restaurant creative play and
make pizzas and charge me some odd price like $2.38. I happily give them the
price provided he tells me EXACTLY how to do that. How many dollars, pennies,
dimes etc., This is a nice way to practice working with money. I usually have my
preschooler count out the number of pennies and nickels needed so that she can
help too.
