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Celebrate Pi Day: Seven Classroom Resources for Pi Learning
March 5, 2013 | Matt DavisHappy 3.14159265358979323846264 Day! That's right, Pi Day is coming on 3/14, and the annual celebration offers a great opportunity for students to explore Pi! (And maybe enjoy some pie, as well.) Of course, there are plenty of great teaching resources online to help your class celebrate Pi Day, and we here at Edutopia thought we'd help.
Here are a few of our favorites from around the Web, starting first with the video, "Learn about Pi with Max and Morty," which was produced by Apperson Prep. It's a great resource to get younger students excited about Pi, radius, and circumference. Happy Pi Day!
- Pi Day Activities from the San Francisco Exploratorium: Without the Exploratorium, we might never have had an official Pi Day celebration. In 1988 Exploratorium physicist Larry Shaw started the tradition, and it was finally recognized by Congress in 2009. The Exploratorium highlights some great hands-on activities, and there is also a great list of Pi-related links.
- Happy Pi Day from TeachPi.org: TeachPi hosts a trove of Pi Day resources, featuring fun classroom activities, Pi Day-inspired music, and other fun learning ideas. There's plenty here to keep students engaged, and learning, on March 14.
- Pi Day Teaching Ideas from Scholastic: Scholastic produced these great lesson plans for three different grade levels -- preK-1, 2-3, and 4-6. There's also interesting information about the history of Pi, as well as a link to a Web application that allows students to explore Pi through music.
- What Is Pi, and How Did It Originate?: Scientific American dug deep into the history of Pi in this article, offering an insightful look at the origins of the mathematical constant.
- Pi Day Resources from Education World: Pi Day lesson plans and classroom ideas for all grade levels are covered in this post from Education World. There's also a great list of outside links, as well as some interesting ideas for Pi Day art projects.
- Celebrate Pi Day with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics: There's plenty of great resources here from NCTM. Along with fun activities, there's also an Illuminations lesson plans section with some great standards-based lesson plans for educators.
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Comments (7)
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Excellent Resource
Thank you for sharing these great resources for Pi Day! I can't wait to use them within my own classroom!
We have also listed 100's of
We have also listed 100's of other resources at kenyaschoolreport.com/resources.
PI explained visually using a polygon
Thanks Matt
Perhaps you can add this resource
http://www.visnos.com/demos/pi
It explains PI by using a regular polygon, as the number of sides increases the polygon approximates to a circle. So if the polygon is opened you can measure its perimeter against a ruler with is equal to 2π
Great resource!
I just pinned it to our "Math Rules!" Pi Day Pinterest Board: http://pinterest.com/edutopia/math-rules/
An alternate view of Pi Day
Here's our look at Pi Day, from a mathematical point of view.
http://ccssimath.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-life-of-pi.html
The Pis of March
Some great resources here! Though that video is exactly the kind of thing that, had I watched it as a kid, would have convinced me that I was horrible at math. The explanations went way too fast and Max was way too capable of comprehending them on the first go-round. It seems that, sometimes, by presenting an idealized version of learning and glossing over the lengthy and challenging processes that it involves, we may be simply reinforcing the idea that some kids are capable and others are not. Possibly even making those who have to struggle a bit more than Max does in that video feel "stupid". Possibly.
We, in The Big-Brained Superheroes Club, are celebrating "March Mathness" this month. We're going to try to make it a yearly thing. Just to spread the Math word, if possible.
Pinterest Board for Pi Day
Great resources Matt. I recently compiled a Math Rules! Pinterest Board that has some of the best resources around the Web that you can use to celebrate the day: http://pinterest.com/edutopia/math-rules/.
Enjoy!