Well, we're off by two days but today the Big Birds had a lot of fun celebrating the number pi. We began by discovering pi by measuring all the circles we could find around the school. By dividing the circumference by the diameter, students found that the quotient was always really close to three. In fact, when we averaged everyone's data, we found that usually our ratio between the circumference and the diameter was 3.134 — not shabby at all! We even paced the circular carpet in the music room, proving that any circle works.
Students are fascinated by a number that goes on forever without any pattern and many have spent a good part of their recess trying to memorize as many digits as they can. Hideaki Tomoyori is the current world record holder — 83,431 digits recited from memory over a two day period. We had two pi champions. Milly recited 61 digits on video before the contest (she had to leave early today.) Alexandra took on the bright lights and intense pressure of the First Annual Prairie Creek Pi Competition and recited 47 digits. Both will have a place of honor in our new Pi hall of fame.
Days like this are meant to expose students to math ideas, not bring them to master the concept. For some, the idea of a number that is infinite is amazing. Others are pondering just how pi "works." Others wondered how in the world the Greeks figured it out in the first place. Still others are working through why the radius is doubled for a circumference, squared for the area of a circle and cubed for the volume of a sphere.
Below are two videos from the pi competition — the last is incomplete because the Flip ran out of memory (just in case you're counting digits).
The Rookery 
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