Outdoor pie making requires children to interact, work together and gain a little physical exercise. Move children into a large space or to the outdoors. Separate them into four groups, and assign each group to an ingredient: bottom crust, berries, gooey liquid and top crust covering. Prior to this, create hats or signs that wrap around their neck to represent what group they're in. Place large pictures of the ingredient they represent on the item. Have children stand a decent distance from one another with a large space open in the center. Upon your call, each ingredient will run to the center area in proper order to "build" the pie. Have the children stand beside one another instead of on top of one another to see the order of the recipe. Once in the middle, have them sing a simple song about pie that you have written beforehand.
Making pie out of play dough is physical in that it hones fine motor skills, which are needed to make precise movements such as manipulating your fingers to pick up small items. Set out numerous play dough colors that are connected with pies. Try colors such as pink or tan for crust, and red, yellow, blue or purple for apples, berries and cherries. Show the preschoolers how to make the shapes for the ingredients, such as a large flat circle for the bottom crust, rolled balls for berries and large strips of crust for the top crust layer. After each demonstration, help them make their own shape. Not only does this help preschoolers remember their shapes, it promotes learning of colors and new words. For added fun, allow them to place their ingredients, in order, in a Styrofoam bowl so their creation more closely resembles a pie.
Group pie building also allows preschoolers to work their fine motor skills and requires them to compromise and work together. Cut large pieces of tan construction paper into triangles. Cut them as large as possible, with a maximum of 2 feet per slice length. These triangles, when placed together, should create a circle. Next, separate the preschoolers into equal groups. Each group should have a triangle and a set of crayons. Each group will decorate their triangle with "berries" by drawing the fruit (or circles) with different colors. The groups will bring their triangles together to make the pie and tell the other classmates about what kind of pie they made.
Pie hide and seek separates children into groups of five. Four people in a group will represent an ingredient of a pie: lower crust, berries, gooey liquid and upper crust. Each "ingredient" will have a large sign with an image of the ingredient he represents. The fifth will be the one to search for the others. Have all "ingredients" hide outdoors and have all seekers stand by you. Upon your call, the seekers will go looking for their "ingredients" and will have to seek them out in order to build the pie. Note that you might have to stop in between ingredients to keep preschoolers on target. The first group to complete their pie wins.