Cai's Home Learning

Cai earned a Pizza Badge!

This badge groups together several subjects such as maths, science, health, practical schemes and literacy under the theme of a pizza mini-unit study. Cai picked pizza as a theme himself, and was eager to make videos of himself doing a “pizza challenge”.

Many of the learning activities followed naturally on each other, as Cai asked questions, for example why balloons deflate. He asked Google, and we found articles and videos that explained things in a child friendly way.

He enjoyed applying what he had learned—for example, for a few days after the sorting into living/non living activity, he spontaneously named things around him with the correct categories.

Learning Objectives

* Learn about food, health and balanced meals
* Numeracy, including measuring and introduction to fractions
* Learning about the biological action of yeast and the chemical actions of cooking, including an introduction to molecules
* Learning about scientific experiments and changing them according to new data
* Practical skills in food preparation and kitchen safety

Tasks

* Read a pizza recipe together
* Help to prepare a pizza dough from scratch, measuring out and weighing ingredients, and observe the dough rising and roll out into bases
* Practice making up amounts from fractions: making a cup of flour from two half cups, and a cup of water from three third cups
* Make pizza sauce from scratch, with lots of healthy vegetables
* Choose lots of healthy ingredients to top the pizza with
* Communicate with family members to find out what toppings they want
* Help to divide cooked pizza into halves, then quarters. And enjoy!



* Share and discuss videos explaining what yeast is and its action, how sugar and warmth contribute to that, and how the molecular structure of gluten in flour creates fluffy dough
* Learn about categories of living/not living and why yeast is living. Do online activities sorting objects/animals/plants/fungus into “living” and “not living”, and then apply that to objects in real life
* Watch videos of experiments with making balloons fill up with carbon  dioxide by activating yeast
* Helping to conduct these experiments, and changing the proportions of ingredients to compare results. Photographing results.
* Find out why balloons lose air/gas over time (more information on molecules)
* Make a fruit “pizza” with a watermelon base
* Play “Pizza Fractions” and learn how proper fractions work

Australian Curriculum (Foundation and Level 1)

English

* Understand that language can be used to explore ways of expressing needs, likes and dislikes
* Understand that some language in written texts is unlike everyday spoken language

Maths

* Sort and classify familiar objects and explain the basis for these classifications.
* Recognise and describe one-half as one of two equal parts of a whole. (Exceeded).
* Measure and compare the lengths and capacities of pairs of objects using uniform informal units

Science

* Everyday materials can be physically changed in a variety of ways.
* Science involves observing, asking questions about, and describing changes in, objects and events
* People use science in their daily lives
* Participate in guided investigations to explore and answer questions
* Use informal measurements to collect and record observations, using digital technologies as appropriate
* Compare observations with those of others

Other general and practical learning

* Cooking and food preparation
* Kitchen safety
* Verbal communication
* Healthy eating