By Natalie Caro and Yolanda Rodriguez
As schools become increasingly test-centered and everything academic seems to be focused on standardization, the Arts are often the last bastion of imagination, creative learning, and play.

​In an article written in 2008, Laurie E Hansen describes her arts in the home project and illustrates the ways in which “[a] parent art program is one way to enhance the visual arts curriculum in early childhood settings while promoting positive home-school connections and interactions with the community.”

In much the same manner, our second Nesting the Arts Project workshop was an another opportunity, in a series of many, to work with ‘parents as partners in Arts education.’

Virtual Resident Artist, Lovie Pignata, guided groups of parents to work together and create their original Pizza pies.  Pizza pies made from paper, an easily acquired material. The activity sparked conversations and created an atmosphere of collaboration. The activity was successful on many levels that were modeled in the interactions between parents.At home, it can be used to aid in the socio-emotional development of children. Table top conversation help children foster stronger communications skills and vocabularies, which are becoming increasingly atrophied with the use of technology.
Cutting up slices is also a really great way of reinforcing quantitate reasoning skills. Sharing pizza makes everyone do fractions to make sure that we all get an equal piece of the pie!
We think you can do this at home.  Below please find a supplies list and instructions.  Remember to follow our Facebook group to watch videos and hear from participating parents:  : Virtual Residency: Nesting the Arts Projects by BxArts Factory
Pizza Night!
Pizza Night is a fun art version of a favorite NYC staple, Pizza! Families will paint, glue, color and cut slices of pizza with their family members’ favorite toppings.
Supplies:
–Pasteboard paper (or large piece of heavy paper) 1 piece per family/group
–Colored pencils or markers
–blank paper (decent weight for coloring, size doesn’t matter, it’s to make the ‘toppings’)
–red paint (for the sauce) with sponges
–shredded paper (a few handfuls from a shredder)
–glue/glue sticks,
–paper plates (I have these!)
–scissors

Instructions:
Using approx 20″ circle cut from heavy paper as the ‘pizza’, participants will draw slices on the circle; one for each person in the group (or 2 slices each if there are 2-3 people).  ‘Sauce’ will be painted on with red paint, allowing room for the ‘crust’ along the outer edge. Once dry, glue is drizzled on the sauce layer and shredded paper is applied as ‘Cheese’. The pizza toppings can be used from the project’s coloring sheet or drawn on blank paper and cut out.  Toppings are added for each family member.  Members can also make slices for one another, guessing favorite toppings before gluing them into place.  The pizza is cut into slices and can be glued to paper plates and ‘served’.  ​