The Osmo Pizza Company App

The Osmo Pizza Company App

The Osmo Pizza Company app is a fun and engaging app that teaches children ages 6-12 real world math, money and social skills. It also introduces students to the idea of running and growing a business and becoming an entrepreneur. What I love about this app is that it is hands on and requires more than just tapping a screen. With this app, students get a cardboard pizza, toppings and money. When a customer walks in, their order pops up on the screen and the student has to assemble the cardboard pizza with the correct toppings as quickly and efficiently as possible. If they make the pizza correctly, the customer is happy and gives a good review, if they make it incorrectly or not fast enough, the customer gets grumpy and can give a bad review! This helps students learn nonverbal communication based on the customer's facial expressions which improves their social skills. Once the pizza has been made, you slide it in front of the iPad's camera to capture it and the customer then gets in a separate line to pay. The student then has to swipe the iPad to the left to go to the register, where customers will give them money for their pizza. Here students engage in math while they make change for each customer. They slide the correct change in the iPads view and again the customer will either be happy from receiving the correct change and give a good review, or be upset from receiving the wrong change and give a bad review. This also improves their mental math skills as they will have more customers lining up for pizza during this time and they will need to quickly make change and move on to making the next pizza. As they continue on and gain positive reviews, students have the opportunity to use their profits to improve the business and work their way up to being the boss! This is a great introduction to business management and entrepreneurship. I have observed student's using this app and they had SO much fun with it that they didn't even realize they were learning. I think apps like that are important with young children. Being interested and engaged in an activity is the first step to understanding new concepts, and with this app student's are instantly engaged. The only negative thing I can say about the app is that sometimes the camera does not capture the pizza, or it can lag and throw your whole game off. When it works properly (which it does most of the time), it really is a great learning tool for students! I even tried my hand at it, and I was surprisingly having just as much fun as the students were, maybe even more! 

Click here to get the app!