Happy Pi Day, 2008!

Now there is an ancient Greek letter,
And I think no other is better.
It isn’t too tall,
It might look very small,
But its digits, they go on forever.

— Scott
at Mrs. Mitchell’s Virtual School

Time to Celebrate

Are your students doing anything special for Day? After two months with no significant break, we are going stir crazy. We need a day off — and what better way could we spend it than to play math all afternoon?

If you need ideas, here are some great pages:

• What is Pi? A Cool Lesson
  I plan to use this with my elementary math club students today. For the older kids, I’ll add a graphing exercise and talk about slope.
• Pi Day Sudoku
  Or get the printable pdf version here.
• Pi Day puzzles for MathCounts students
  And here are more pi-related puzzles.
• Pi Day ideas & links from the Math Forum
• Pi Day ideas for teachers from Math with Mr. Herte
• Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?
  These PowerPoint games test your students’ knowledge of math and -related trivia. Older students may prefer the online pi trivia game.

Since is eternal, last year’s links are not obsolete. So don’t miss the infamous hot-dog toss, how to find your birthday in the digits of , and more:

• Happy Pi Day, 2007!

History of Pi

• The history of Pi Day
• The “Jewish” or “Bible” value of pi
  Does the Torah really say that = 3?
• A Chronological History of Pi with Developmental Activities in Problem Solving
  I would love to use a lesson like this. Unfortunately, it is full of typos and far from user-friendly. Has anyone written a better version?
• Archimedes’ method of exhaustion
  I’ll approximate this with my MathCounts kids, using squares and hexagons. Archimedes worked up to a 96-gon, but that is beyond us. High school students may enjoy another Archimedes puzzle.
• MacTutor’s History of Pi
  Follow the adventures of from II Chronicles 4 to 20th century Germany, including the still-open question: Is “normal”?

Would You Call It Pi-etry?

Who knew mathematicians could be so literary?

• Poetry for Pi Day
• Pi-Ku
• A Challenge for Pi Day: Write Your Own Pi-ku
  Add your creation to the comments.
• Circle Digits — A Self-Referential Story
• Poe, E.: Near a Raven

Pi in Your Face

• Fun pi facts and a puzzle from The Joy of Pi
• Pi jokes
• The Pizza Theorem
  What is the volume of a pizza of thickness a and radius z?

Mathematical Pi Song

And here is Chickenfoot’s favorite YouTube song about :

[If the embedded version doesn't work, click here.]

Personally, I prefer Professor Lesser’s lyrics:

• American Pi

And Finally…

For those who hate to join a bandwagon, here is the curmudgeon’s view:

• The Irrationality of Pi Day

[Hat tip: I found several of these links through Mathmom's post and the comments that followed.]

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Have more fun on Let’s Play Math! blog:

• Happy Pi Day!
• Poetry for Pi Day
• Planning Ahead: St. Patrick’s Day
• Writing to Learn Math
• In Honor of the Standardized Testing Season…