Fifth graders in Ms. Haupert’s and Mr. Lucken’s class participated in a Fraction Pizza Box Project. The project consisted of creating pizzas with five different toppings, finding equivalent fractions, and constructing two story problems related to the pizza box. Students had creative ideas for designing their pizza boxes using foam, paper scraps, paper mache, and even Play-Doh! Our winner for best design was Trinity Areias and best overall was Cade Wruck. This project would not have been possible without the help of our local sponsors Pizza Hut and Casey’s. We would like to thank those local businesses that helped support the donation of pizza boxes. Our students had so much fun designing the pizza boxes and saw the real life application of the math work we do in class.
Trinity Areias was the winner for Best Design. Trinity was asked how she came up with her design for not only her pizza but how she decorated the outside of her box. Trinity said, “My family was able to get involved and help with my box. My pizza relates to Finding Nemo and I spun a famous quote in the movie.” The line in Finding Nemo is “Fish are friends, not food,” and Trinity spun the line “Pizza are friends and food.” Trinity’s cousin helped her with drawing the shark on the outside of the box and included Nemo on the front of the box. Trinity was asked how she came up with the name for her pizza box. Trinity titled her Box, “Sharkaria”. Trinity and her cousin were talking about what to name it and they wanted it to be related to the sea and stay within the theme of Finding Nemo. They both shouted out Sharkaria at the same time and agreed that it would fit the pizza box perfectly.
Cade Wruck was the winner for Best Overall. Cade was asked about how this project related to what they did in math class and had this to say, “We use fractions to separate and divide the pizza apart. The fractions help us understand pie charts. Most importantly, this helps us with everyday life.” Cade said his favorite part of the project were the details; he described how it helped him as a visual learner with making a nice example of fractions. Cade states how grateful he is that he won best overall.
Ms. Haupert and Mr. Lucken were most pleased with the amount of effort, production, and creativity used on students' pizza boxes. “We thought they did a great job overall, they all worked really hard to get this project completed and their effort is demonstrated in their final project”, said Mr. Lucken. Mrs. Haupert elaborated, “I did not know what to expect with it being the first time doing the project. The kids went above and beyond expectations and left me saying WOW about their projects!”