Poetry & Pasta: Kindergarten Wordplay

My love of poetry extended into May this year as I read aloud to our Kindergarten classes.  I had read my poetry and facilitated poetry writing with students in 1^st through 5^th grades in the month of April.  Finally, I had a little more time to bring the joy of verse into Kindergarten.  I found the perfect picture book to share, Pasta, Pasta Lotsa Pasta by Aimee Lucido.  Since I am of Italian heritage, I found this book to be particularly fun and engaging.  Ms. Lucido’s wordplay is exquisite and invites  young children to join into the rhythm of the story.

As I read through the book several times in preparation, I realized that the children would need some background knowledge of some Italian words and types of pasta.

This book was the perfect vehicle for sharing Italian culture and exploring rhyming words. I created a brief slide show to present the story and the special words the author used.  By front loading the special Italian words, I helped children understand the story better, and they began to use the Italian words as I read about the different family members who come to help make all different types of pasta.  

When I finally sat down to read, I showed the children the end papers of the book which had pictures of all types of pasta, and we talked about their favorite kinds to eat.  Ravioli and spaghetti were the most popular.  But tortellini was a close third.  I also brought some boxes of different types of pasta so that students could see and touch the dried pasta.

The book starts with at repeating line, which the children quickly learned and helped me say: “Ring-a-ding-ding, the doorbell rings, and oh! What did my nonna bring?”  Each time the doorbell rings, a new family member appears with a new type of pasta that they want to make. There are many visitors like Nonno Titi from Tahiti, Zio Tony from Shoshoni, and Zia Trini and her cat Houdini. Mama is very busy in the kitchen!  Now with all that commotion and all the pasta making Mam’s bowl are big and heavy and when it’s time to eat the serving bowls tumble to the floor.  But in true storybook fashion, “Ring-a-ding-ding, the doorbell rings” and Lisa the delivers pizza and saves the day!

As a celebration of this story, I initially thought I would make pasta pizza with the children creating a pizza dough and then topping it with various cooked pastas of their choosing.  Add a little sauce and cheese and create a tasty snack.  However, this snack would take too much time in a busy spring Kindergarten teacher’s life, so I opted for bringing dried pasta and having the children make pasta collages. They loved seeing all the different types of pasta and they quickly got to work making their works of art.  It was so great to see how each child planned an designed with canvas with pasta.  Some created abstracts, some created tangible objects, and some began to build 3-D structures.  I love working with young children because they are full of possibilities or should I say, “pastabilities!?”