Thursday, March 14, 2013

Today is Pi Day!

Today was great day at school!  My school is usually on spring break when π Day happens.  (That would be March 14th, or 3/14.)  So I jumped at the chance to share the day with my students.  First we (my Algebra 1 students) watched the following movie about how to calculate π:

My students loved the movie!  Most of them already knew how to calculate π, but there were a few that never knew where exactly π came from.  After the movie, I quickly reviewed the concept.

To keep he momentum going, we did π day singing.  I found some great songs, using holiday songs, all with words about π at http://www.teachpi.org/downloads/PiDayCarols.pdf.  The students love that we were singing in math class!

Next on the agenda was to find the digits of their birthday in π.  I used the website:  http://www.angio.net/pi/piquery.  Almost all the students could find all eight digits of their birthday somewhere in the first 200 million digits of pi.  I did have a few students who were not able to find their digits.  (π actually goes out to about 5 trillion digits.)  If we had a website with more of the digits, my guess is that all of the students would have been able to find their birthday digits.

Finally, I read the students a book called, Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi.  


Although it is a bit babyish for teenagers, they were so engaged!  Many of them had heard the story in an earlier grade.  While I read the story, my students colored in π pictures.  Here are some of them:


The students had a great time, and I did too!