Pi Day has become an annual celebration for the 4/5s. Today, we began the day with a demonstration of the power of pi in the music room (which, not coincidentally, has a round carpet). After having a child pace across the diameter of the carpet, the teachers got together to "magically" predict the number of steps it would take him to travel the circumference of the circle. We predicted 48, it took him 47. "How did you do it?" the students wondered. "Pi!"
We had a smorgasbord of fun activities this morning and the rooms buzzed with activities. The purpose of the day was not to have children come away with an ability to find the area of a circle (although some did). Instead, we wanted to introduce them to an important number and have them participate in a world-wide celebration of math. There is power in community, and we don't often think about math as something that brings people together.
We ended the morning with our "Pi Eating Competition." Students recite pi to as many digits as they can. We start with a non-competitive round for kids who just want to share what they've memorized so far and then ended with a competition for the pi crown. Pictures of the two previous winners stared down from the white board as L.U. recited 130 digits of pi to become this year's champion.
If you want to visit some of the sites we used today, you can find them for the time being on the sidebar of this blog.
The Rookery 
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