Homeschooling - homemade pizza project

We are rolling along in the summer homeschooling program. It is interesting to me how the four kids are finding their own learning projects as we go along.

On the fourth day, one of the mothers lent us an erasable wipe board so that Madison could use it for her math class (Madison is working with the younger two on math as I am clueless in that subject and she is brilliant). Darcy and Heather were trying to figure out how to hang the board in our make-shift classroom. The dilemma was that the board only had hangers to hang it length-wise (landscape as the kids referred to it) and Madison preferred it to be hung like a regular chalkboard because she felt she had more room.

The two girls studied the board for a while. I studied the board. I suggested that since the hangers were the type that screwed into the board that they unscrew them and re-screw them back into the board on the sides that they wanted to hang. We got a hammer and did just that. Then we hung the board.

Heather: "Hey, we're doing Woodworking 101!"

Later that day, the girls paired up to make homemade pizza. Heather and Madison watched a video on the correct way to toss pizza. They rolled and rolled and spent quite a bit of time tossing the dough into the air. First Heather would take a turn and then Madison would take a turn. There was a lot of laughing, and the dough did end up on the floor twice.

Heather: "Five-second rule!"

They had a problem with the dough. Every time they would get the dough the way they wanted it, whether by tossing or rolling, they would put the dough back on the wax paper and it would shrink. They finally decided to leave the dough in a misshapen circle and began to "decorate" it with sauce, cheese, pepperoni, and olives. Once it was in the oven they felt the job was finished. They later learned that it wasn't...when I smelled it burning and took it out of the oven.

Darcy: It looks like a continent!"

The girls devoured half the pizza. The consensus was that the dough wasn't cooked enough in the middle. It was on the outside, demonstrated by the girls when they knocked it against the table edge.

They then turned the kitchen over to the younger girls for their turn at making pizza. The kitchen that was turned over to them did not resemble the kitchen that the older girls started with, however.
There was flour everywhere. Flour on the floor, flour on the cabinets, flour on every inch of the counter, flour inside of every object that happened to sit on the counter, and flour in the sink.

The younger students took it all in stride and went to work. They watched a video on the correct way to work the dough with your fingers. They both took turns following the instructions. They too had the same problem with shrinking dough that the older girls had encountered. With my help, we decided to roll the dough and then use the lip of a bowl to cut the dough into a nice round circle.

They ended up with three pizzas, one large and two mini pizzas. Two of them were cheese as Sarina is a vegetarian. The last mini pizza was for me with pepperoni and black olives.

While the pizza was cooking the younger girls, with my help, cleaned the entire kitchen. They washed every piece of furniture in the kitchen. They washed and dried utensils. They swept and mopped the kitchen floor.

The important thing was they kept checking on the pizza as it cooked. When it came out of the oven everyone felt it looked prettier than the first pizza.

The girls devoured most of the pizza and declared it "yummy".

Asked what they from their experience?

Sarina: "Always go second!"