Pizza Pals! — Grown-Ups' Corner (Teacher Guide)

What is this?

🍕 The game at a glance

Pizza Pals! is a touch-friendly pizza-shop game for young learners (built for iPads and Chromebooks, works in any browser). A parade of ten silly customers — kids, a knight puppy, a robot, a monster, an alien, a pirate cat, a witch, a dinosaur, a grandma, and an octopus food critic — each ask for a pizza. Children listen to and read the order, then make the pizza step by step and serve it. Every customer speaks in their own voice, and a friendly narrator reads the steps aloud, so pre-readers can play independently.

Underneath the fun, children practice counting and one-to-one correspondence, listening and following multi-step directions, and their first taste of computational thinking — reading symbols, running a sequence of steps, and fixing mistakes. A built-in Teacher Settings panel (⚙️ on the title screen) lets you dial the challenge from a single topping up to memory and placement puzzles.

The tools & mechanics children actually use

🗣️

The order & the “Hear it” button. A customer states an order. It appears three ways at once — spoken audio, written words, and a picture card (a numeral plus that many topping icons). Tapping 🔊 Hear it replays the order so children can check what they missed.

👋

Patting the dough. The first make-pizza step: tap the dough three times to flatten it into a crust — an inviting, low-stakes way to start the sequence.

🥫

Sauce & cheese choices. Children rub sauce around the pizza and shake on cheese. From Level 2, the customer may ask for no sauce or cheese, so children first tap an Add sauce / No sauce button — a listen-and-decide (yes/no attribute) task.

🧀

Dragging toppings from the bins. Children drag each topping from the shelf onto the pizza, placing the exact number requested. At the highest level, toppings must go on the correct left or right side, and one topping is forbidden (“no mushrooms!”).

✅

The live order checklist. A strip at the top tracks progress (2 / 3, green checks) and gently flags problems — too many, a topping that isn’t on the order, or the wrong side — inviting the child to tap a topping to remove it and fix it.

🔥

Bake & serve. Tapping Bake it! slides the pizza into the oven (with a timer and a “Ding!”). Then Serve it! hands it to the customer, who happily eats and reacts.

🎨

“Make My Own!” sandbox. A free-play mode with no order at all — children invent any pizza they like, bake it, and celebrate. Perfect for creativity, early finishers, and “explain what you made” conversations.

🏆

Rewards: stickers, coins & Prize Shop. Each served pizza earns coins and adds to the sticker book (📖 — collect all ten Pals). Coins can be spent in the Prize Shop (🎁) on cheerful visual themes. These are motivation only — nothing is timed or lost.

⚙️

Teacher Settings & Learning Summary. Set the difficulty level, the instruction format (words + pictures + audio, listening only, or reading only), turn on memory mode, topping highlights, or a no-pressure timer, and reduce animation. A Learning Summary reports orders completed, first-try accuracy, corrections made, order replays, and highest level reached.

Accessibility built in: every action is narrated, orders can be audio-only or text-only, animation can be reduced, and the whole game is designed for large touch targets in landscape. No login, no ads, no data leaves the device.

Standards alignment

📏 What it aligns to

Primary alignment is to the CSTA K–12 Computer Science Standards (2017), Level 1A (Grades K–2). The advanced difficulty levels reach into Level 1B (Grades 3–5). Each standard below is matched to a concrete action in the game.

CSTA — Level 1A (Grades K–2)

Code	Standard	How this game addresses it
1A-AP-08	Model daily processes by creating and following algorithms (sets of step-by-step instructions) to complete tasks.	Making every pizza follows a fixed algorithm — pat the dough → sauce → cheese → toppings → bake → serve. In “Make My Own!” children create and run their own sequence.
1A-AP-11	Decompose (break down) the steps needed to solve a problem into a precise sequence of instructions.	An order (“sauce, cheese, and 3 olives”) is broken into an ordered set of actions the child carries out in turn; the step hints name each step as it comes.
1A-AP-09	Model the way programs store and manipulate data by using numbers or other symbols to represent information.	Orders represent information with symbols — a numeral plus topping icons stand for “how many of what.” Children translate those symbols into actions on the pizza.
1A-AP-14	Debug (identify and fix) errors in an algorithm or program that includes sequences and simple loops.	The live checklist flags too-many, wrong, or wrong-side toppings; children identify the mismatch and fix it by tapping a topping to remove it before baking.
1A-DA-05	Store, copy, search, retrieve, modify, and delete information using a computing device and define the information stored as data.	In memory mode the order is stored and hidden while cooking, so children must retrieve it from memory; adding and removing toppings models modifying and deleting data.
1A-DA-06	Collect and present the same data in various visual formats.	The same order is presented three ways at once — spoken audio, written words, and a picture card — helping children see one piece of information in multiple representations.
1A-CS-01	Select and operate appropriate software to perform a variety of tasks, and recognize that users have different needs and preferences for the technology they use.	Teacher Settings let the same game be operated as listening-only, reading-only, with reduced animation, or with topping highlights — a concrete example that different users have different needs and preferences.

CSTA — Level 1B (Grades 3–5) for the advanced levels (3–4)

Code	Standard	How this game addresses it
1B-AP-10	Create programs that include sequences, events, loops, and conditionals.	Level 4 orders are governed by conditionals: “put pepperoni on the left,” and “no mushrooms.” Children execute a sequence with conditional rules and repeated (loop-like) placement.
1B-AP-15	Test and debug (identify and fix errors) a program or algorithm to ensure it runs as intended.	Before baking, children test their pizza against the order using the checklist and correction prompts, then fix errors — a full test-and-debug loop with immediate feedback.

Beyond computer science — Math & Listening (Common Core)

Code	Standard	How this game addresses it
K.CC.B.4	Understand the relationship between numbers and quantities; connect counting to cardinality.	The order shows a numeral and that many icons; the child places that many real toppings, connecting the number to a quantity.
K.CC.B.5	Count to answer “how many?” questions about as many as 20 things … and count out that many objects.	Children count out the requested number of toppings one at a time onto the pizza.
K.CC.C.6	Identify whether the number of objects in one group is greater than, less than, or equal to the number of objects in another group.	The checklist compares toppings placed to toppings requested (2 / 3) and signals when there are too many or too few.
K.MD.B.3	Classify objects into given categories; count the numbers of objects in each category.	Toppings live in labeled category bins; children choose the right category and count how many belong on the pizza.
K.G.A.1	…describe the relative positions of these objects using terms such as above, below, beside, in front of, behind, and next to.	Level 4 asks for toppings on the left or right side of the pizza, giving positional-language practice.
SL.K.2	Confirm understanding of a text read aloud or information presented orally … by asking and answering questions … and requesting clarification if something is not understood.	Children listen to a spoken order and use the “Hear it” button to request clarification — especially in listening-only mode.

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Ready to run

👩‍🏫 Three lesson plans

Each is about 20–30 minutes. Open Teacher Settings (⚙️) before the lesson to set the level and instruction format named below. All three work on shared tablets or 1:1 devices.

Lesson 1 · Kindergarten · Level 1

Count & Cook

~20 min · whole group intro, then pairs

Objective

Children read a number and place exactly that many toppings, connecting a numeral to a quantity (one-to-one correspondence).

Vocabulary

ordertoppingcounthow manymatchmore / fewer

Steps

In Teacher Settings ⚙️, set Difficulty → Level 1 and Instruction format → Words, pictures, and audio.
As a group, tap Play!. Listen to the customer, then look at the order card together. Ask: “What number do you see? How many pepperonis should we count?”
Model making one pizza: pat the dough, rub the sauce, shake the cheese, then drag toppings one at a time, counting aloud, and watch the checklist climb (1 / 3, 2 / 3, 3 / 3).
Tap Bake it! then Serve it! and cheer.
Send pairs to play 3–4 orders, taking turns: one child counts out loud, the partner drags.

Discussion questions

How did you know when you had enough toppings?
What did the checklist do when you added one too many? How did you fix it?
Show me “one more” and “one fewer” with your fingers.

Lesson 2 · Grade 1 · Level 2 · Listening only

Listen & Decide

~25 min · pairs

Objective

Children follow a spoken multi-part order, making yes/no decisions about ingredients (sauce and cheese) and placing the right number of toppings.

Vocabulary

listeningredientsaucecheeseyes / nodecidecheck again

Steps

In Teacher Settings ⚙️, set Difficulty → Level 2 and Instruction format → Listening only (the words hide, so children must listen).
Play an order. Encourage children to use 🔊 Hear it to replay it as many times as they need — good listeners check twice.
Make the pizza. When the game asks, tap the correct Add sauce / No sauce and Add cheese / No cheese button based on what they heard.
Drag the requested toppings, using the checklist to self-check, then bake and serve.
After ~5 orders, open Teacher Settings → View learning summary and look at first-try accuracy and order replays together.

Discussion questions

How did you decide whether to add sauce or say “no sauce”?
When is it smart to press “Hear it” again? Is asking to hear it again a good move or a mistake?
Which part of the order is easiest to forget — the number, the topping, or the sauce/cheese?

Lesson 3 · Grade 2 (→ Gr. 3) · Levels 3–4

Remember & Arrange

~30 min · pairs or small groups

Objective

Children hold a two-part order in memory, run the steps in the correct sequence, place toppings on the correct side, and leave out a forbidden topping — then test and fix their work before baking.

Vocabulary

remembersequencefirst / next / lastleft / rightsidewithout / “no”check & fix

Steps

Warm up in Level 3 with Hide the order while cooking switched on (Settings ⚙️). Children listen, then must remember two toppings while they cook.
Move to Level 4. Now orders add a side (“olives on the left”) and a forbidden topping (“no broccoli!”). Read/replay the order carefully first.
Make the pizza in order: dough → sauce/cheese decisions → toppings. Place each topping on the correct left or right side, and skip the forbidden one.
Use the checklist and correction prompts to test the pizza against the order; fix any wrong-side or extra toppings before tapping Bake it!
Finish with the Learning Summary: discuss corrections made and highest level as signs of growing, not failing.

Discussion questions

What is your trick for remembering two toppings at once?
Why does the order of the steps matter — could you put toppings on before the sauce?
Tell me about a mistake you caught and fixed. How did you know it was wrong?

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Talk about it

💬 Conversation starters

Use these while a child plays, or after they build a pizza in “Make My Own!” The goal is to get them explaining their thinking — the heart of computational thinking.

🧠 “Walk me through how you made this pizza — what did you do first, and what came next?”

🔢 “How did you make sure you had the right number of each topping?”

👂 “The customer said a lot! How did you keep track of the whole order?”

🛠️ “Did anything go wrong? How did you notice, and how did you fix it?”

🎨 “In your own pizza, why did you choose those toppings? Tell me the recipe.”

🍕 “If you had to teach a friend to make this exact pizza, what steps would you tell them, in order?”

↔️ “Where did you put the toppings — and why did the side matter this time?”

⭐ “Which customer was your favorite to serve? What did they order?”

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Capstone assessment

📝 “Make Your Own Pizza” rubric

A simple, kid-friendly capstone: in “Make My Own!” mode, each child designs and bakes a pizza, then explains their recipe — the steps, the toppings, and how many of each. Use this 3-level rubric to observe. It is a snapshot for planning, not a grade.

What to look for	1 · Emerging	2 · Developing	3 · Confident
Follows a sequence	Needs prompting for each step; may skip or reorder steps.	Completes the dough → sauce → cheese → toppings → bake steps with a reminder or two.	Runs the full sequence independently and can name the steps “in order.”
Counting & quantity	Adds toppings without counting; unsure how many.	Counts out toppings with some miscounts; self-corrects when reminded.	Counts out an intended number accurately and can say “I put on ___.”
Explains the recipe	Names one topping or “I made pizza.”	Lists the toppings and a couple of steps.	Gives a clear, ordered recipe another child could follow.
Notices & fixes	Doesn’t notice mismatches without help.	Spots a problem when it’s pointed out and fixes it.	Independently checks the pizza and fixes mistakes before baking.

Extension: have the child dictate their recipe as an “order” for a partner to build in Play mode — turning their creation into instructions someone else can run.

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