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Pi Day~ How to Make an Apple Pie

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Learn how to make an apple pie with us on Pi Day!  What is Pi Day? March 14th is 3-14 which is the same number as Pi: 3.14.  Read on to learn more.

We celebrated with little apple pies and reading some fun related books!

pi day activities for kids

What is Pi?

Pi (π), the 16th letter of the Greek alphabet, is used to represent a mathematical constant. It is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It equals the circumference divided by the diameter (π = c/d). Also, the circumference is equal to pi times the diameter (c = πd). The digits of pi go on infinitely and have been calculated to over 50 trillion digits beyond the decimal point with no repetition and no pattern.

The cool thing is that no matter how large or small a circle is, pi will always work out to be the same number. The ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter is always the same no matter the size of the circle.

 Pi Day

What is Pi Day?

It is actually a national holiday!  Mathematicians and math teachers like to make March 14th into a special day to celebrate the date 3 (for the third month, March) 1 and 4 for the 14th day of the month.  This date matches the first three digits of pi.

This day was founded in 1988 by scientist and physicist Larry Shaw.  He worked at the San Francisco Exploratorium.  It also happened be Albert Einstein’s birthday.  Cool coincidence.  Now all of us nerdy people continue the tradition! 😉

Another fun fact, March 2015, a 21-year-old student in India, named Rajveer Meena set the Guinness World record for memorizing 70,000 digits of pi. It took him nearly 10 hours to recite it!

How to Celebrate Pi Day:

Start by learning the numbers of pi. If your kids are young, like mine, just start with learning a handful of digits. Eventually they can learn more!

To celebrate Pi Day at our house today, we are combining mathematics with a food celebration. We are making and eating yummy apple pies. We made some little mini ones in a muffin pan. We’ll also be having pizza pies, of course!

mini apple pies

We read two books: one about Pie (How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World) and one about Pi – Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi. If you haven’t read and of the Sir Cumference books yet, I highly recommend them!

The book How to Make and Apple Pie and See the World is a fun one that we read often. We used the recipe in the back of the book today for our apple pies.

dragon of pi  how to make an apple pie and see the world

For dinner, we’ll be eating pizza measuring the circle’s circumference before digging in!  Check out my Kid- friendly homemade pizza recipe! This is a visual recipe that helps younger kids learn how to cook.

You could also do this activity with pancakes. Find the pancake circle’s circumference before eating!

A Few More Fun Activities:

Print out my Pi Puzzle  and learn the order of the digits of pi.  Make this into a fun challenge for kids. See mow many digits of pi they can memorize past the decimal point.

Pi Math Puzzle

Pi Day Activity~ Math Art– Try this fun and pretty math art activity! It is based on the decimal places of pi.  You’ll need a ruler and a jumbo piece of paper for this one.

Play my Build a Pizza Fraction Game– lean math and have fun at the same time!  It might make you little hungry though. 🙂

 

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One Comment

  1. Happy Pi Day! We celebrate Pi Day annually by bringing pie to school and work and eating pizza pie for dinner. We also wear the symbol somewhere on us and take holiday family photos. This year we made a banner full of circle and practiced writing the numbers of Pi. Thanks for sharing your Pi Day fun!

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