Pi Day Fun

For those of you who are not aware, today is the mathematical holiday Pi Day.  Obviously, it was created by an American who wrote the date 3-14 and not 14-3.  But I choose to celebrate it in 14/3 countries nonetheless.  As a math teacher, we have to take our holidays when we can get them. 

I make a big deal out of Pi Day in class.  We spend most of the period measuring circles- their circumferences and diameters and seeing if we can be accurate enough to divide and get π.  We talk about the special qualities of π and its role in mathematics.  And then the real fun begins.  I ask for parent volunteers to send in a pie (or as was the case for many non-pie folks in Thailand, a round cake) and usually we have 2-3 per class, which the kids are able to eat while I read them the book Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi.  There's a whole series of Sir Cumference books, about him and his wife, Lady Di of Ameter and their son, Radius.  But the best part of all is that before I give them their pie, I make them sing.  No singing, no pie.  

In the past I have had two Pi Day songs to torture them with, but this year I found a third one.  "Happy Pi Day to you" is sung to Happy Birthday, O Number Pi is sung to O Christmas Tree (imagine, O number pi, O number pi, your digits are unending...) and then my newest addition is sung to Jingle Bells.  The chorus goes like this: 

Pi Day songs

all day long, 

O what fun it is,

to sing a jolly pi day song,

in a fun math class like this!

I so dearly wish I'd been able to get video of the kids sheepishly (or perhaps for some 6th graders, not so sheepishly) belting them out in order to get their slices of pie.  Pi Day is fun, but exhausting. I didn't see one of my math classes today, so they celebrated yesterday, but that still left 4 rounds today of circles and measuring and reading and singing and serving and cleaning up pie. 

Coincidentally, today also happens to be Albert Einstein's birthday.  Oh, and my sister's birthday too, lucky girl :)