A love of science starts early, and the kitchen is a fantastic place to foster it! Learn how to incorporate pizza dough science lessons as you let the kids help cook dinner. Find more household science activities for kids.
Homemade pizza turned into the perfect science lesson Saturday afternoon! Normally I throw the ingredients in the bread maker, but I decided to make it by hand. I’m so glad I did – it wasn’t that much extra work, and making pizza with the kids provided so many learning opportunities!
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Teaching Science While Making Pizza with Kids
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It turns out that there is an awful lot for kids to learn while making pizza! Weights and measures, kitchen chemistry, and a little biology thanks to the yeast.
Pizza Dough Biology
All three kids were fascinated by the texture of the dry yeast, and Lily especially was amazed at the way it sank into the sugar water solution. Johnny was very worried that the yeast would drown in the water. I explained that the sugar water was giving the yeast energy, instead of drowning it!
I wondered if the kids would worry about cooking an eating a living thing (the yeast is alive, and we had talked about that), but they were fine. I guess it’s not really much different from picking a plant to eat.
Pizza Dough Chemistry
Emma thought the foam created by the carbon dioxide that is released as the yeast metabolizes sugar was cool! Johnny found it very strange.
Practicing Weights and Measures While Making Pizza
The kids loved measuring out all of the ingredients for pizza dough making! We didn’t need a kitchen scale for this recipe, but I let them pour their cups of flour in anyway to see how much they weighed. A little extra learning!
Engineering Pizza
Stirring the yeast solution into the flour was a very popular activity! I only got photos of Emma stirring, because Johnny and Lily require a little extra supervision, but they got plenty of turns!
Tasting dough was also very popular! Johnny was actually a bit disappointed when we turned it into pizza (a little more engineering), although that didn’t stop him from eating plenty of pizza!
Note: I have had a couple of requests for a pizza dough recipe. We use lots of different recipes depending on moods, but this pizza dough recipe is always a hit with the entire family!
Fun Pizza Dough Science Experiments
Are you looking to extend your learning? Try these simple pizza dough science experiments.
- Learn why it’s more accurate to weigh recipe ingredients than it is to measure them by weighing different cups of flour.
- Try growing yeast in different temperatures of water with different amounts of sugar.
- Make two pizzas. Let one raise longer than the other and see which one you prefer eating.
- Explore how heat makes dough rise faster by putting half of your dough in a warm spot and half in a cold spot.
Do you have a pizza dough science experiment to add to my list?
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MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
Where is the recipe?? I couldn’t find it :(
This one is great: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/basic-pizza-dough-recipe.html
How fun! Love the pictures!
The expressions on your children’s faces is priceless. Thanks for the link-up. I love getting ideas from other moms.
How was it? I’ve been looking for a good pizza dough recipe… haven’t found one yet.
I used this recipe, although I added more yeast because I can’t copy recipes down correctly, apparently. And forgot to add the olive oil, because I’m forgetful like that. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/pizza-dough-iii/
I kind of liked the flavor from the extra yeast… Wasn’t in love with it, but it’s worth tinkering with. And I should probably make it properly before I say anything definitive about it!
Thanks for mentioning my activity!
Lori
You’re welcome! I thought it was a wonderful idea!!!
Thats an awesome activity! Its real science, its hands-on, and its relevant to kids’ everyay lives. :D
Love homemade pizza! So cool that you turned it into a science lesson with your kids!
Cooking is fantastic science, and I love how you have the technical terms on the tip of your tongue, such as the yeast metabolising sugar. I’ll have to remember that one. The learning links from other blogs you posted were fantastic, too! Thanks for the roundup!
Yummy lesson. Johnny worrying about the yeast made me think of my nephew. He would think the same thing.
We must have a slightly different pizza recipe since ours involves only water and yeast which is mixed later with flour, salt and sugar. Anna loves to help out with self-made pizza too but only eats the dough :(
My kids LOVED eating the dough!
What a neat science lesson! It looks like the kids had a lot of fun.
We all had a great time! =)
There are definitely learning opportunities all around. We as parents just need to slow down enough to explain them. I love cooking in the kitchen with the kids.
Great job making science fun – and yummy!
Thanks! It was a fun evening!
I love how they all look so fascinated by the pizza dough! Definitely a great learning opportunity. :)
It was a very fun cooking project!
I loved this post and I am going to link it to my blog for my Preschool Parents!
Thank you!
What a great idea. I have pinned it. Thanks.
Thanks for the pin!
Great reminder to slow down a little and share the process with children – they really appreciate don’t they (& learn)!
It was a very good reminder for me!
I love to make pizza dough. We’ve only done it a couple of times but I really enjoyed it.
We need to make it more often – it’s so fun for the kids!
Can you believe I have never made pizza dough!
I really need to get on the ball…my kids would love it also!
I love how you turned it into a lesson! :)
Your family would LOVE this activity! We just googled a recipe and it turned out great!
We haven’t been learning too much this week. Mommy’s been a little lazy! LOL!
You’ve been teaching them about the importance of downtime =)
Looks like fun! My kids love to help cook and prepare food and I love the math and science information I can talk to them about as we cook.