LINCOLN PARK — To the surprise of the teachers of the prekindergartners from St. Vincent de Paul School, only two children passed on the veggies and went with a plain cheese pizza.
The class of 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds took a trip to Mrs. Green's Natural Market Wednesday morning to cap off their most recent lessons on pizza.
The lesson has been a chance for students to not only learn about the history and makings of pizza, but to learn about nutrition in the process.
Suzanne Grissom, their teacher, has been using classic kids favorite, pizza, to explore everything from maps of Italy to DNA sequencing.
"We follow the children's interests, and the children were very interested in pizza one day at lunch, so we started doing a pizza study," Grissom said.
On Wednesday, a nutritionist and the store's pizza chef set each student up with his or her own dough and some flour to knead before letting them top their pizzas with an array of veggies.
The key was to show students the full process so they could learn where their favorite foods come from.
While topping their pizzas, students were told the more color, the better, with red onions, broccoli, yellow and red peppers and tomatoes.
"We wanted to show them that you can really eat anything and make it healthier," said Kristen Johnson, a registered dietitian at Mrs. Green's.
