Pizza Pieces

Activity Overview

Understanding how equal pieces fit together as parts of a whole is a foundational mathematical skill. Eventually this will lead to understanding fractions, but today students will be counting slices of pizza and determining either how many are left, or how many more are needed to create a whole pizza. Although this appears to be a basic counting activity, students are actually practicing addition and subtraction in trying to determine how many are needed, or are leftover.

What You Need

• Pizza pieces and paper spinner print outs

• Digital spinner 1-5 (optional)

• Digital spinner 1-10 (optional)

• Pencil (if using paper spinner)

• Paper clip (if using paper spinner)

• Scissors

• Markers

• Dry erase board and markers (optional)

Steps

1. Color in the pizza pieces and cut them out.

2. Arrange each grouping together. Take some time to count the total number of slices in the pizza, then, place each slice on the pizza mat template and count as you arrange them into the full pizza.

3. Take turns spinning the spinner. Take away the number of slices indicated by the spinner. Each time, ask “How many slices are left in the pizza?” Create the full pizza again after each turn. Alternatively, start with a clear board and add the number of slices indicated by the spinner. Then ask, “How many slices have been eaten?”

4. Start with five slices, move up to 10 slices. For an extra challenge, use the blank pizza board that does not have slices shown.

Guiding Questions

• How many slices are there in total?

• How many more slices do you need to make a whole pizza?

• How do you know?

• What if there were one more? One less?

Extensions

• Use a whiteboard to write equations as you go

• Don’t clear the board after each turn. Instead, keep building and see who fills all the slices without going over. Ask and answer, “How many more?” each time.