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!
I wonder who ate all those pies after his demo... LOL! That aside, I love all the fun things you did with your students for Pi Day. Math is considered one of the tougher subjects to learn and teach, but incorporating activities and visuals like what you did do prove to be helpful with regards to the learning experience. If students find a subject enjoyable, they are more likely to engage and want to learn more. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDelete-Daniele