Finding Balance With Asperger's: Super Sorting Pie

Learning Resources is a leader in educational toys and supplies for children and they have been kind enough to allow me to review another of their amazing products. The Super Sorting Pie is an award-winning toy that teaches early math skills and helps children learn valuable sorting skills. This set comes with a plastic pie crust (both top and bottom crusts), 60 counting fruits, 2 plastic tweezers, 3 double-sided sorting cards, and an activity guide. All pieces are plastic, except the cards and guide, and are extremely durable and well-made. Just as with all Learning Resources products, these are made to last.

This set is amazing. We love the realistic looking fruits and the many different ways the set can be sorted. As an added bonus, the bottom crust removes from the attached “plate” and the activity cards slide in place, giving children various ways of sorting the fruits by color, type, quantity and more. This makes it easier to remember what children are doing and keep them on task, especially for younger children. Due to its bowl shape, the top crust makes a useful holder for the pieces as they’re being sorted, making this set to be even more convenient and well thought out.

(Click any photo to enlarge)

Quinn has had a blast using this set. He really loves sorting activities and loves the pie theme of this one. The tweezers are amazing for strengthening his grasp and developing his lacking fine motor skills and they are the perfect size for his hands. Because Quinn has Asperger’s and a fine motor delay, such fine motor-strengthening activities are so important. He really struggles with thin plastic tweezers because of their “give” when squeezing and ones that are too small for his hands cause him to be frustrated, causing him to give up. The tweezers in this set are perfect. They are very thick, strong plastic so they are not easily bent and their large size and indented sides are ideal for small hands and fingers. They also have ridges on the tips, so the items don’t fall out easily and they are not too tough to squeeze. Of all the child’s tweezers we’ve used in the past, these are by far the best for him. The fruit pieces are also a great size because they fit into the tweezers perfectly, but are not too small which would cause them to fall out. They are also very vividly colored and easy to distinguish between them. This sorting pie is also great for introducing simple fractions and has even proven useful in practicing fractions with my 10 year old son.

The Super Sorting Pie is a really fantastic set that I would recommend to anyone with preschoolers or early elementary school children. It is reasonably priced at $27.99 and will last for many, many years of fun and learning. This would also be great for teachers. You can purchase this and all Learning Resources’ wonderful products on their website, www.learningresources.com.

Thank you to Learning Resources for providing a complimentary product sample for us to base this review upon and for providing an additional product for our contest prize.





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Play To Learn Diner Review: Pizza Parlor Math Problems (Free Printables)

Welcome to our first Play To Learn Diner activity, where my 6yr old son demonstrated to me how much he actually knows about basic multiplication, division, and fractions by playing pizza parlor. I was reluctant to start off with this topic, but he proved my concerns to be unfounded.

To aid us in this learning activity, Discount School Supply sent us a Cut & Play Pizza set, which comes with a 6-slice pizza held together with Velcro, a pizza pan, a spatula, a pizza cutter, plus cheese and red pepper shakers. This play food pizza was the perfect prop for this activity because there were no loose toppings or small parts to worry about, which made it much easier to focus on the lesson at hand.

Although using the Cut & Play Pizza Set would make this math lesson much more enjoyable, I have provided some free printables below, which can be used to demonstrate these math problems. The first page is a pizza that can be decorated with your child's favorite toppings and colored in before cutting out the pizza slices. The second page is a pizza platter that should be cut out in a complete circle.

(To print, click on each image to enlarge. Then right-click to select print.)

Pizza Parlor Math Problems:

1. There are two people at the pizza parlor sharing one pizza. IF one person ate 3 slices of pizza and the other person could only eat 2 slices of pizza, THEN how many slices of pizza are leftover? (6-3)-2=1
2. IF 6 people want to share 1 pizza equally, THEN how many slices does each person get? 6 divided by 6 = 1
3. IF 2 people want to share 1 pizza equally, THEN how many slices does each person get? 6 divided by 2 = 3
4. IF 2 people want to share 1 pizza equally, but also would like to bring 2 slices to their friend who is sick at home, THEN how many slices does each of the 3 friends get? (6-2)/2=2
5. There are two people at the pizza parlor sharing one pizza, but they cannot agree on what kind of pizza to order. One person wants plain cheese, while the other wants pepperoni. IF they order one cheese pizza with pepperoni on half the pizza, THEN how many slices will have pepperoni on it? 6 divided by 2 = 3
6. There are two people at the pizza parlor sharing one pizza. IF the first person can only eat 1 slice of pizza and the second person can eat twice as many as the first person, THEN how many slices will be leftover? 1 + (2x1)=3, 6-3=3
7. There are 12 people at a pizza party. IF each person can eat 1 slice of pizza, THEN how many pizzas would they need? (12x1)/6=2
8. There are 9 people at a pizza party. IF each person can eat 1 slice of pizza, THEN how many pizzas would they need exactly? (9x1)/6=1.5

I was in awe that my 6yr old son did not get even mildly stumped until the very last question. Even then, he figured out the correct answer after 3 attempts. I completely under-estimated him.

I cannot tell you how much fun all three of my children are having with this pizza set. Pizza is a universal language, whether you are 3 or 6 years old. So far, this set has provided hours of play daily. My 6yr old used his imagination and built a makeshift pizza oven. They even learned to take turns with their favorite part . . . cutting and serving the pizza.

You can find this and the full line of Angeles Baseline Table and Chairs at DiscountSchoolSupply.com

Thank you to Discount School Supply for providing a sample pizza set free of charge for us to base this article upon.