Pi Day Celebration

I had heard of Pi day for a few years now and kept thinking it would be something fun to do when the kids were older and learning about/ using Pi in math.  I remember learning about Pi in high school so I figured when they were high school age.

But I have seen Pi mentioned a few times in Alec's 5/6th grade math book... 

Then it hit me!  If we celebrate Pi day every year until they are in high school they'll be more likely to remember that Pi is 3.14 just by talking about it one day a year for a few years! 

It doesn't hurt that they had so much fun with it too. 

Unfortunately, my epiphany did not happen until late and I did not have much time to pull supplies together for Pi day.  Many of the activities and books I wanted to use/ read would have required a trip to the store or the library and so we made do with the few activities we could do around the house. 

I vowed to do better next year. 

For this year we started by making Tollhouse Pie together; a pie that all three of my boys will eat. 

I showed them a print out of Pi and we talked about what infinite meant and the fact that Pi goes on forever. 

We then talked about diameter, radius, and circumference of a circle.

Using cylinders and string the boys would measure out the circumference of each object.  They then held the string over the diameter of the object and cut the string; making three long strings with one tiny part left over.  I explained that it was showing us 3.14. 

A visual of 3.14

I asked them if we could make the string fit around the object without the .14 piece.  They immediately told me the string would not be long enough. 

From there the boys went on to write Pi stories. 

I gave them three different writing ideas that they were allowed to choose from:  

• They could write about their favorite pie and tell me why they liked it.
• They could write in Pi format where either the number of words they used in each sentence lined up with Pi (the first sentence would have three words, the second sentence would have one word, then four words, etc.)
• They could write in Pi format where each word followed the sequence (the first word would be made up of 3 letters, then the second word would have 1 letter, and the next word would have 4 letters, etc.).  

They each chose to write about their favorite pie.

We went on to do a fun artsy activity.  Using markers and graph paper they drew a Pi city. Graphing each number in the first few lines of Pi.  They were having so much fun that Ian told me he was going to complete his city later using all the lines across on his graph paper. 

Alec's city

When it was finally time to eat our Tollhouse pie I helped the boys use a string and a ruler to find the diameter of our pie and asked them how we could find the circumference.  The older boys told me 3.14 times 9.

I wrote the equation down for them on two separate pieces of paper and told them to calculate it for me.  Since Evan is just starting to learn his multiplication facts we rounded up to 10 and I had him work with me to find the circumference of the outside rim of our pie plate.

All three quickly found their answers and enjoyed a delicious slice of pie.

All in all we had a great time and the boys are already putting in requests for Apple and Pudding pie next year!

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