Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Happy Pi Day! Home school resources
Happy Pi Day! It's not a day to eat pie....although you can. It's a day to remember that wonderful little number we all learned (or tried to learn) in school. Pi day is celebrated on March 14 every year (get it? 3.14)
How many digits of pi do you remember?
3.1415926535......and so on
Do you remember the first time you heard a teacher say "Pie are square" in math class and were totally confused yet craving a slice of pie at the same time. I'm going to take a break from food blogging for today to share some of my favorite resources for home school Pi day activities.
When we were homeschooling Roma, Pi Day was a day devoted to lessons about Pi and was her first exposure to kitchen math.
A typical Pi day started with making pancakes for breakfast and then a quick lesson on radius versus diameter and how to figure out the circumference. As she got older we moved onto area of circles and volume of cylinders. Two pancakes overlapping led to a discussion of the Venn diagram.
An afternoon cooking lesson on how to make an apple pie taught basic food chemistry, kitchen sanitation, how to work with fractions (especially when we doubled a recipe), and gave us time to talk and share which is the best part of homeschooling. As she got older, I did less and hung out more. Her Pi day training was put to the test last Thanksgiving when she made her first solo pumpkin pie from scratch.
For Pi day dinner we'd have pizza.....naturally! Pi day is all about round food.
Here are some of my favorite links for Pi day resources and fun ways to spend it. Come back and comment and let me know if you tried any of them.
Exploratorium Pi Day - has a Brief History of Pi, activities, and more links
Pi and the Fibonacci Numbers - for advanced students - this site looks at how Pi is calculated
Pi Day Song - uses the numbers in Pi as musical notes (violin music)
Khan Academy - Circles: Radius, Diameter, Circumference
Teach Pi - teacher site for ideas for teaching Pi