Fifth Grade Celebrates Pi Day!

Ordinarily, I don't encourage children to play with their food, but working with their food...now that's something else.  Yesterday was Pi Day and 5th graders in the red pod celebrated by measuring the diameter and circumference of their round snacks.  They learned that circumference divided by diameter equals 3.14159... and of course the inverse is also true.  (We learned those fact families in the second grade for a reason.)  Although this was a break from our unit in fractions, Pi Day offered us an opportunity to review decimals and variables within an algebraic equation. 

During the activity, students traced their round snack, then placed a piece of string around that circle and cut it to size.  They measured their string in centimeters in order to do their calculations.  Then, they placed their string across the diameter of their circe and cut it to size.  This yielded 3 pieces of string, and a small piece left over which gave them a visual represenation of 3.14.

Mrs. Banspach, our district math coach, joined us during this celebration and she reminded students that Pi isn't the decimal 3.14159...  Rather, Pi refers to the relationship of a circle's diameter to its circumference. 

I'd like to thank Mrs. Banspach and Mr. Main for all their help and mathematical insights, not just yesterday but always.