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3.141592653589793238462643383279502884.............

Do you know what today is? 



For all the math-minded people out there… it’s Pi Day! Get it? 3.14! March 14th!

As a math teacher, Pi Day is a big celebration. We threw all caution to the wind in the classroom today, and participated in various Pi-related activities.

Now, a crash course in Pi for those of you who can’t remember back to their math studies days…


Pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. No matter the size of the circle, it always comes down to 22/7, or approximated as a decimal 3.1415926……

The cool thing about Pi is that it goes on and on forever and never ends. One of the things we did as a school was we hung up the first 1500 digits of Pi around the building. Each student was responsible for creating three digits of their own, and then we put them up as this super-long trailing number throughout the building.




In my classroom, we played a game called “Circle Nim,” a two-person strategy game of placing various-sized circles on a piece of paper and trying not to be stuck with no where to place your circle.


We also had a contest of who could memorize the most digits of Pi. (One of my students knew 42 digits! Crazy… I know about 6. Ha.)

Another game we played was an exciting round of Pin-the-Radius on the Circle. Students were blindfolded and spun around and then had to try to place a cut-out radius exactly where it belonged on a circle which was displayed on the front board.


And, the best part of the day for the students was probably the pie eating. You can’t celebrate Pi Day without some pi(e)!


I made one of our favorite pies last night to celebrate the occasion. (This is my Business Man’s favorite pie… last time I made it, he had 3 slices in one afternoon/evening. And then had a belly ache. Wah wah…)

Tollhouse Pie!



It’s like a deep dish chocolate chip cookie in a pie crust. Warm, gooey, chocolatey, and buttery, it’s delicious topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. And yes, I did use a store-bought crust. Shame on me...




Tollhouse Pie


  • 1 9-inch pie shell, unbaked
  • 2 eggs
  • ½ cup flour
  • ½ cup sugar
  • ½ cup brown sugar
  • ¾ cup butter, softened
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1 cup chocolate chips
  • 1 cup walnuts

Method

Preheat oven to 325*F. Beat eggs until foamy. Beat in flour, sugar, and brown sugar. Beat in softened butter and vanilla. Stir in chocolate chips and walnuts. Spread into unbaked pie crust. Bake in preheated oven 55-60 minutes until set. It will still be a bit gooey on the inside. Let cool 10-15 minutes, and serve with vanilla ice cream!



Happy Pi(e) Eating!

Comments

Unknown said…
Great blog. I love it that you celebrated pi day. Very cool games. I also am a numbers person so I get that and the fact that you play number games in your head. I would do that swimming.
Sara said…
Laura-- Thanks for reading! It's fun to share the joy of mathematics... haha. :-)

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