20 Literacy Activities for National Pizza Month

October is National Pizza Month! Incorporate this silly holiday into your child's reading efforts with these fun pizza-themed literacy activities.

Reading Material

• Act out Pete's a Pizza by William Steig, a picture book in which a little boy's father turns him into a pretend pizza.
• Enjoy Jack Prelutsky's well-known poem "A Pizza the Size of the Sun," provided in this review from BookPage.com. 
• Read The Pizza That We Made by Joan Holub.
• Read Pizza at Sally’s by Monica Wellington.
  
  

Matching Games

• Make an Opposites Pizza Matching Game like I did for Read-Along Story Time. Use posterboard for a large-scale set, or download the quick and easy printable version I made here. 
• Match up different words that mean the same thing with Synonym Slices, a free printable from Classroom Freebies Too. 
• Play Pizza Delivery, a gross motor reading game from No Time for Flashcards. Create simple houses, pizzas, and streets named for vocabulary words, then have your child practice reading as he delivers each pie to the right customer.
  
  

For the Flannel Board 

• Repurpose a pizza box and use the printable patterns provided by Learning 4 Kids to create your pizza set, complete with imaginary cheese, olives, peppers, onions and more.
• Tell the story of Hi, Pizza Man! on the flannel board, using Future Librarian Superhero's Flannel Friday post for inspiration. 
• Use a flannel board to share the poem "Knock! Knock!" by Stephanie Calmenson, in which a family gathers for a surprise pizza party. 
• Sing about pizza to the tune of Bingo like Jen in the Library did in this story time. 

Songs and Rhymes

• Imagine your perfect pizza, then do the Pizza Chant from Virtual Vine which allows your child to name the different toppings she'd like to eat on her very own pizza.  (You'll need to scroll down a bit to find the chant - there are lots of other pizza activities on the site as well.)
• Play the pizza-themed version of Pat-a-Cake shared by  SurLaLune Story Time.
•  Sing Abby the Librarian's Baking Pizza song to the tune of Shortnin' Bread.
  

Letters & Writing

• Download the P is for Pizza and... phonics activity from 1+1+1=1's printable literature unit for Hi, Pizza Man!   
• Turn the Letter P into a pizza as shown on Pinterest.
• Tell a story using this printable My Favorite Pizza Writing Activity by thepreschooltoolbox at Squidoo.com.
  

For Groups 

• Set up a dramatic play station for Pizza Hut, based on the image shown at kidscount1234.com. This is a great way to learn how to spell different toppings and to understand the differences in size between small, medium, and large pies.
• Play this Pizza Party Sight Word Review Game from Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas. Each word a player reads correctly goes on the pizza - the winner is the one who reaches the target number of toppings first!
• Play Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten's Pass the Pizza. Kids pass pizza slices printed with letters around a circle while singing a quick song. When "stop" is called, each child identifies the letter on the slice in his hand.