It’s March! And if you’re a math teacher you know what that means: Pi Day!!!
My students often ask if we can have a party during class. For any reason they can think of. So that we don’t have to learn. Um, no.
I always tell them I only do a party on Pi Day. So then naturally they keep asking what we’re doing for our Pi Day party months in advance. I tell them we will plan our party once it’s March. And it’s finally here!
We usually spend about 10 minutes planning what each person is going to bring since if everyone brought a pie we’d have a lot of leftover pie or a bunch of sick students. I usually bake something for these parties and take suggestions from the class, giving them options.
Here are some of the pies I’ve baked in the past.
My rule for foods students can bring in – anything round – I remind them that Pi is in fact related to a circle. A couple out of the box examples: one year we did pizza pi (I’m sure that’s not so unique), one year I had a student who didn’t eat sugar so I made roasted coin (round) carrots. Not only did it balance out all the other sugary treats, but it also helped that student feel included and she really appreciated it.
We also divvy up who will bring in plates, drinks, napkins, etc. Roundness also comes up in this context. I tell students that the napkins can be square (since I haven’t seen too many round napkins), but the plates shouldn’t (since square plates are not the standard). I also usually fill in anything that doesn’t get covered (such as bringing in extra napkins, forks, etc).
As far as activities for the day, we can’t lose valuable instruction time! Even if the lessons aren’t completely tied to the curriculum I try to make it somewhat educational, much to my students’ chagrin.
The activities vary by the class but some I will do for any of my math classes. I usually use Math Giraffe’s Pi Day Doodle Notes (in Geometry I also do the Circle Doodle notes since we usually are about to start that unit). While it’s not curriculum specific, I like to challenge my students’ general math skills with the 3.14 challenge from Math=Love. It is a great way to introduce concepts like factorial, which most of my students haven’t learned. There’s a lot of great Pi Day Activities on her site, like this Square Pi Puzzle that I also use most years.
Pi Day is also a great time to share pi or math related images or memes, like this one with instructions on how to actually make this pi(e). The great thing about this is it’s an easy way to introduce students to new more advanced math concepts that they may not have learned, or review things that they have in a fun way.
How do you celebrate pi day with your students?
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