10 Simple Activities For Pi Day
Pi Day is heading our way? Wait what? Pie Day? I love pies!! No… I mean Pi, as in the number ?, 3.14…. March 14th? Get it! Ah yes.. a fun day for Math teachers all across the country, finally a maths based celebration! Let’s take a look at some fun and simple Pi Day Activities for kids – whether at home or in the classroom!
What is Pi – ? ?
The number ? is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter – it is always the same number, regardless of how big or small the circle is. ? is approximately 3.14159 (rounded).
The last calculations of Pi date back to 2019, when it had been calculated to 31.4 trillion decimal places… but it is consider to be an infinite number.
? – Pi information and further facts
Want to read more about ? itself? Wonderopolis is a great website to get all your basic Pi questions answered from What is Pi? to What is an irrational number? and of course What is the final digit of pi?
Most activities will explore the first set of Pi digits. Here is a good reference for you to get you started. I am sure most projects will not go past a 100 decimal places:
Pi to 10 digits: 3.1415926535
Pi to 100 digits (spaced into sets of 10, so you can take the size you find most useful): 3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 50288419716939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679
Now.. as to some fun Pi Day Activities.. let’s get started!
Pi Day Activities for Students
Pi Day Paper Chain
A paper chain is a fun way to represent the number Pi using strips of construction paper. Pi Day Paper Chains are easy to set up and make. You can literally just grab some colorful paper and get started, or grab a copy of my handy downloads. A fun an simple activity to get students thinking about the Pi digits and decimals.
Pi Day Bracelets
Pink Stripey Socks as a dual approach to the Pi number… you can either assign a colour to individual numbers 0 through to 9 or work with odd and even numbers and colors. Then grab a bunch of beads (any beads, from Perler beads to regular beads) and start threading. Resulting in two pi day bracelets. If you keep threading then these Pi bracelets quickly will become a fun pi necklace!
Pi Digits Mobiles/ Suncatchers
Another fun one make using Perler Beads – not quite a bracelet, but based on a similar concept, you can make these wonderful Pi Suncatchers form Our Family Code.
Pi Day Art Projects
Pi Geometry Activities
Little Bins for Little Hands has a set of different pi day activities for you to try out. I particularly like the circle crayon coloring!
Pop Art Pi Day Coloring Pages and Greeting Cards
These are a super simple print and use resource over in my Teacher’s Pay Teacher’s store. The price is kept super low for affordability, but still helps support the upkeep of this blog and all the free resources!
Pi Day Quiz and Pi Day Cootie Catchers
I have a fun Pi Day Quiz for you as well. The full set of printables including worksheet for assembly and all the Quiz Questions is available on Teachers Pay Teachers, but I do have the full color blank cootie catcher for free for you as well, so that everyone can join in! Use it to write your own quiz prompts or pi related maths questions!
Polka Dot Pi Day Art
Assign colours to numbers and then created a polka dot and line piece of artwork. Find out more from Pink Stripey Socks.
Pi Day Art Skyline
This is a fun activity using bar graphs/ graph paper to create a visual representation of the pi decimals. What Do We Do All Day, also creates a Pi Day inspired piece of art, by getting the children to create a Pi numbers sky line. So cool!
Pi Day Mosaic
Our One Family, as a similar activity using paper mosaics.
Pi Day Paper Plate Suncatcher
Similarly, I love the simplicity of this Pi Day Suncatcher – but I do like the theme of circles for the tissue paper and of course the circular paper plate too! Visit JDaniels4Mom for info.
Sir Cumference & the Dragon of Pi Book
How about reading a fun book with your students. “Sir Cumference, Lady Di of Ameter, and Radius are back in their second Math Adventure! This time, a potion has changed Sir Cumference into a fire-breathing dragon. Can Radius change him back? Join Radius on his quest through the castle to solve a riddle that will reveal the cure. It lies in discovering the magic number that is the same for all circles.” Available on Waterstones and all major book shops.
Write a Pi-Ku Poem
Writing a poem on maths class may not come natural to most Math Teachers.. but it is a fun variation on the topic of Pi and make sore a different kind of lesson. A pi-ku poem is based on Haiku poems – quick, short poems with minimal syllables in each line. For Pi-Ku poem, use each digit of the Pi to determine the syllables of each line:
- Line 1: 3 syllables
- Line 2: 1 syllable
- Line 3: 4 syllables
- and so on…
E.g.:
I like pi
It’s
Quirky, fun but
Loooong.
You catch my drift!
Write a Pilish Poem
Inspired by the Pi-ku? Well how about a pi-lish poem? Our family code, tells us all about it here. Here is another example of how to Write a Poem in Pi-Lish!
And that is it for my Pi Day Activities! Wishing you a fun filled Happy Pi Day!