3.14 Ways to Celebrate Pi Day in the Classroom
Happy Pi Day!
Pi Day was invented by a fellow educator, Larry Shaw, a staff physicist at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Today, many teachers celebrate March 14th with fun activities and treats devoted to the number pi.
Here are 3.14 ways to celebrate Pi Day in your classroom!
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The world record is currently 70,000 digits. While we don’t recommend going to that extreme, you can still challenge your students to remember as many digits as possible. The winner gets a prize (a pie, perhaps?).
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This is a great way to incorporate experiential learning in your classroom. You need a perfect circle (such as a dinner plate), some string, and a ruler. Measure across the plate to find the diameter (D) and around the plate with the string to find the circumference (C). Then simply divide: C divided by D is pi. The more careful the measurement, the closer you will get to 3.14.
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Use colored beads to make a Pi Day bracelet. Start with 3 beads of one color, then 1 bead of another color, then 4 beads of a third color and so on for the digits of pi needed to go around your wrist.
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Okay, this might not be educational by itself, but sampling some sweet pie may make your students just a bit more excited about math!
Need another fun activity? Check out our Pi Day Secret Code Worksheets! Your students will crack the codes to reveal fun facts. Some facts are focused on math, while others contain information about Pi Day itself.
Whatever you do to celebrate Pi Day, take some time to enjoy the fun side of math with your students. Who knows? You may have some future mathematicians on your hands!