Pi Day Festivities 3.14.2016

Let's face it....Pi day (March 14 every year) is for nerds!  Am I a nerd?  Although I hate to say it out loud.... I probably am.  As a math and physics major, I think most people would declare that I am.

So.... I wanted to make Pi Day extra special for my children.  Even though they are only 8 and 6, I wanted to somehow make this number that YHWH created from scratch and that pops up in the universe over and over because of it's fundamental nature actually MEAN something TANGIBLY to my young children.  Maybe it would help them unlock some deeper understanding of physical laws later down the line.... Maybe they'll just forget about everything we talked about in a few days... I don't know.  To me, it was worth a shot.

Here is my board.  I started with how to even say Pi.  Then I showed them that it's a Greek letter and has a meaning of 3.14.

My children already know what a line of symmetry is.  They also know that a circle has an infinite number of lines of symmetry.  So, it was easy to just say, let's call the line of symmetry on a circle the "diameter".  If you wanted to measure this you could use a ruler....

The next major feat was to figure out how to describe the circumference of a circle.  I told them to imagine taking a piece of string, and tying it around a circle.  Then, measuring the string.  That would be this mysterious "circumference" number.

Now.... let's put it together.  For ANY Circle, no matter what size, the circumference and the diameter are related to each other in the SAME EXACT way, and that is by the number pi.  My kids don't know the term "ratio" yet.  I had to just say, "circumference divided by" or "over" diameter to them... Even my six year old has seen fractions and understands simple division.  This whole ratio thing might make sense in a couple years, but for now, since my kids understood what I was talking about, I considered it to be a victory!

Now.... Bust out all the circles in the house so we can test out this "theory"!

Afrikah Measuring the diameter of a clock.

We used string to measure the circumference of our circles.

Some Circles were so big that we needed to use measuring tape.  Here, Afrikah is drinking out of one of the circles we measured...

Hizki measuring a diameter.  After about three circles (you can see there's ELEVEN circles even in this picture) my kids got the point that 3.14 really kept coming up!

That Peanut butter jar's lid actually gave us the closest number to Pi.  I kept this in mind.  My children probably didn't notice it.  But they enjoyed all the measuring and using a calculator for the first time.  They wanted to keep measuring circles, but I had a FUN packet for them to do.







I found a Pi Day packet on teacherspayteachers.com.  I decided to go ahead and spend $4.25 for a packet that is appropriate for younger elementary school students.  It was worth every penny, and I can use it next year.  I only picked out a few activities to do from the packet.  I figure we can use it for the next few years until we've done all the activities we want to do from it...

Here's a link to this fabulous packet!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pi-Day-583799

 

My kids LOVED Pi Day!  So, I really consider this a success.  Circles will never be the same, and maybe I inspired my children to from a young age love math and be ready to conquer it!