I was at SXSWedu Tuesday-Thursday and HATE being away from the kids so each of my groups had a challenge. By their color block on the board I wrote: PI DAY before I left... each time they misbehaved for the substitute, she was to erase a letter. If any letters remained when I came back, they would have a Pi day surprise! They were awesome and had a great note and greeted me so sweetly when they saw me Friday morning. I even had several Happy Pi Day cards from students! :)
Now for Pi Day...my favorite! I created this smore: https://www.smore.com/g30g-pi-day to keep me on track throughout the day.
- We went over the brief history of pi to begin with....the kids were surprisingly quiet and interested. :)
- I then gave each student a paper plate, assigned them a number, and asked them to decorate the plate with their number. At the end of class we stapled these plates in order of the digits of pi...by the end of all of my classes we had a pretty long chain!
- While they worked on this, I let groups take turns and come complete an experiment: Tossing Pi. Students tossed toothpicks onto a lined poster board and then counted the total number that landed on the board and the number that crossed one of the parallel lines. Then students completed this calculation: 2 x (total number) / (number crossing line) = ? I had students write this answer on a post-it and post them on the back board.... when we looked at them all at the end of class they were really excited that all of their estimates were close to the value of pi. I was nervous it wouldn't work but one group got 3.12 ... WOW! They were as excited and impressed as I was, which was really fun to watch.
- I passed out slices of pie since they had such a great note from the sub, played music, and had a really good day.
The last hour of the day is reserved for a Pi Day Assembly.
Do you and your school celebrate pi day? How do you celebrate?
- Pi limericks- Each teacher selects one student to read a limerick about pi.
- Pi skits- Each teacher has a small group perform a skit about pie. My group amazed me.... I left them the skit Monday, was out Tuesday-Thursday and on their own they put together the cutest skit about the Babylonians and Pi!
- Digit Winner - We challenge students to memorize as many digits as they can of pi...and reward prizes to our top 5. This years winner memorized over 200 digits!
- T-Shirt Winner- Students create Pi-Day t-shirts. The t-shirts hang in the library and on their weekly library visit students vote for a winner.... Here are a few of my favorites:
First place - Chicken Pot Pie
Second place - Got pi?
Third place - Instapi
- Choir sings "Mathematical Pi" This years sixth graders really got into it and sang along :) (We started it at 48 s)
- Pi the principal- Throughout the two weeks leading up the assembly, students can earn small pi the principal tickets. All of these are put in a box in the office and we draw one student that gets to hit our assistant principal with a pie!
- Pi the teacher- Throughout the two weeks leading up to the assembly, students can purchase "pi the teacher" tickets for $0.25 or 5 for $1.00. We donate all the money to American Cancer Society and raised over $600 dollars this year. There are buckets in the library with each of the five math teachers pictures. Students put their name on the back of the ticket and pick a teacher they would like to pie. The teacher that raises the most money gets pied by a student we draw from their container. For the second year in a row...I win. (I don't know if that's a complement or an insult? :) Because the kids raised so much money.... we let them pie each of the math teachers (so I got two!!)
Do you and your school celebrate pi day? How do you celebrate?
No comments:
Post a Comment