On March 14, 2018 I sat in the hospital waiting for my first child to be born. We arrived early in the day, but as the clocked ticked towards midnight I grew impatient. Not only because I was excited to meet my daughter, but because time was running out on Pi Day. I mean, having a Pi Day baby is every math teachers dream right?! Thankfully, at 11:00PM our daughter Carsey was born and the nickname Carsey-Pi still sticks.
In case you don't know, Pi Day is an annual celebration of the mathematical constant pi. It is celebrated on March 14 since the first three digits of pi are 3.14. It also happens to be Albert Einstein's birthday!
I love celebrating Pi Day with students. It is a great opportunity to have some math fun and can be used at any grade level. Unfortunately, we are never able to celebrate on the actual day as it usually falls during March Break. However, an early celebration is better than none! Whether you teach Kindergarten or the Senior grades, below are some resources that may help you with planning your own Pi Day at your school.
The Math of Pi
Before we get to the real fun activities, I like to spend a couple lessons that teach students about Pi.
These lessons are aimed at older grades, however, they can be varied to reach the younger grades as well!
Classifying Numbers
In order for students to really understand why Pi is special, I like to start by taking a look at our Real Number system.
Once we have gone over Real Numbers I like to have students do the following:
1) Give students sticky notes with different Real Numbers on them. On the board, have a diagram
of the Real Number system. Students can come up and place their sticky notes on the correct spot. You can use this as a springboard for more discussion.
2) Have students practice! Try this worksheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DqiHMN9_rpq7n-tRYURovTFL5m7lrUwi/view?usp=sharing
Discovering Pi
Students should now have an understanding of irrational numbers and that Pi is irrational. However, there are many irrational numbers in the world, so why is Pi special?
1) Activity- Have students measure circles. They can create a chart and find circles around the classroom to measure their circumference and diameter. Using a string is helpful for measuring the circumference. Once students have measured a few circles they can complete the third column by calculating the circumference/diameter for each circle. Hopefully students notice that their answers are close to 3.14!
2) Discussion- Review what student's discovered in their activity. Pi is special because if you take the circumference of any circle in the world and divide by its diameter, you will get Pi!
I like to use a program like Geometer's Sketchpad to help show this.
If you teach a younger grade you can still dig a bit into the math of Pi:
-Talk about symbols in math
-Discuss digits and decimal points
-Go over the basics of circles
-Introduce the idea of infinity!
Pi Day Fun
Now that students have some background about Pi, it is time to have some more fun!
Activities
- Have a competition to see who can memorize the most digits of Pi
- Make posters informing people of Pi Day and what they have learned
-Try calculating Pi using pies (see the video below)
-Have students complete a Pi puzzle (https://teachbesideme.com/printable-pi-puzzle-pi-day/)
-Do this Pi Skyline Art project (https://www.whatdowedoallday.com/math-art-for-kids-pi)
-Try this Pi card game (https://mathgeekmama.com/pi-day-card-game/)
-Eat some pie!
-Complete some Pi Day colouring pages (https://www.piday.org/pi-day-coloring-pages/)
-Younger students might like this grid art project (https://tinkerlab.com/pi-day-2015-pi-day-art-project/)
Videos
Here are a couple of videos that I like to show that can help students learn more about Pi.
I hope this is helpful as you plan Pi Day for your class!
Comments