Pizza Topping Fun in Speech Therapy...

9/13/2011

Poppa's Pizza Pile Up

Activity: Poppa’s Pizza Pile Up is one of the favorites among the younger children that I work with during Speech therapy. I remember as a child, my favorite food was pizza and a lot of children just love pizza. I modify the activity based on the goals that each child is working on in therapy. For example,

Goals Students are working on During Speech Therapy:
Student #1: Working on producing target /s/ in the initial position at the word level
Student #2: Working on using 4-5 word utterances to communicate

Materials that I Use for this Activity?
-Initial /s/ cards or word list
-Picture Cards
-Poppa's Pizza Pile Up

How is Each Goal Targeted?
There are many different ways to modify an activity to target each student’s goal. Below is a possible option:

Student #1: Says 3 initial /s/ words: sit, sand, sock…SLP models correct production...Then student gets to choose a topping to put on the pizza.

Student #2: Looks at picture card, talks about what they see… Ex. If student says, “Brown dog”…SLP models a sentence for the student, “The brown dog is running.” Then student can take a turn and choose a topping to put on the pizza.

We Have So Much Fun...
We talk about their favorite type of pizza, ingredients to make pizza; below is a sheet that I bring to accompany Poppa's Pizza Pile Up. Before we start the activity we always discuss the parts of the pizza (i.e. the crust, sauce, cheese, toppings) and the pizza toppings (mushroom, cheese, pepperoni, tomato) they can choose to put on the pizza when it is their turn. They make a sentence (i.e. "May I have the _(name of the pizza topping)_) before they put their topping on the pizza.

I Do Not Have Poppa's Pizza Pile Up....
You do not have to go out and buy a pizza game, this activity can be prepared with construction paper.
Ex. Brown paper for crust, Red paper for pepperonis and tomatoes, Yellow paper for cheese...Clip art can be used for the different toppings if you do not want to use construction paper.

Construction paper may not sound as fun, but....Remember it is all in how the activity is presented! Have fun with your lessons. The pizza parts can be in a bag when you first start the activity, you can have them guess what is inside of the bag, have them pull out the different parts that make up a pizza to see if they can guess...Ask them, "What do you think we are making today?"

Enjoy....In the comments box below, feel free to share your experience with this activity or any others ways that this activity could be modified.