Quaker Valley's second-grade pizza-making lesson continues virtually

Pizza-making is a tradition for Quaker Valley School District second grade students, but this year it required some creativity and help from Sewickley’s Bridgeside Market.

For the 10th year, second grade teacher Kristina DiRenzo uses the pizza-making lesson to teach about procedural writing and many math concepts that come with following a recipe. The students make lists, write recipes, talk about the process and then make pizza from scratch.

In a typical school year, the students make the pizzas in the classroom, cook them in the cafeteria, and then enjoy them during lunch.

Because of online learning, there was a chance the pizza-making lesson wasn’t going to happen this year.

DiRenzo said she wanted to keep things extra safe because of the covid-19 pandemic, so instead of making pizza dough for everyone, she called Bridgeside Market in Sewickley to ask if they would sell pizza dough. Not only were they willing to sell dough when they found out about the project, but they also made each student an individual pizza-making kit. The box included everything needed to make pizza: dough, sauce, cheese and pepperoni.

Families got their kits, and on Dec. 22, DiRenzo led the class in a virtual pizza-making lesson over Zoom.

The students used the notes they took from the day before on the process and used the experience to write a procedural essay as a class.

DiRenzo said she is pleased with the finished product.

“My heart is very full right now because I know that the kids got so much from this, and I’m honestly so happy it all came together in this crazy year,” she said. “I never in a million years thought I’d be making pizza with my second graders virtually, but I’m so thankful that we were able to, and the kids will have this great memory from their second-grade year!”