What is The Yummy Pizza Company?

The Yummy Pizza Company, an interdisciplinary thematic unit that introduces the world of work to elementary age students, is available from the California Federation of Teachers. This 32-page booklet includes everything an elementary teacher needs for ten lessons, including objectives, materials, procedures, practice/homework, extensions to various subject areas, and bibliographies.

Two years in development, The Yummy Pizza Company was designed by Los Angeles second grade teacher Phyllis Chiu, with assistance from San Francisco third-fourth-fifth teacher Bill Morgan and Berkeley second grade teacher Sam Frankel. They have produced a set of lesson plans easily adaptable to all elementary levels. The curriculum creates a role-play setting of work in a pizza factory. In the beginning the students learn the differences between work and play, examine the reasons why people work, and see themselves as future workers. By the end they will have applied for a job, worked at it, learned about cooperative work relations, experienced workplace conflict and conflict-resolution strategies, and learned about unions and what they do. They do this through actually producing small pizzas on an assembly line. (If the school doesn’t allow cooking food, the curriculum has provisions for a play-dough alternative.) Cost: $3

The Yummy Pizza Company can be ordered with student handouts in Spanish.

Order The Yummy Pizza Company