Pi or Pie Anyone?

Yes, that's the symbol for pi... Yes, I'm a math teacher. I know I'm a little odd when I get excited about Pi day. Only a math teacher would understand. 

I signed my contract for the 2009-2010 school year this week. That sounds so weird. I'm almost finished with my 2nd year. WOW. 

Pi Day celebration: (a day early)

Pi=3.141592 (those are the only digits of the trillions I know). I love my job. I love it that this celebration falls just at the right time. We are finishing up our unit on solids (3-d shapes) and moving on to all the FORMULAS. A large portion of the CRCT focuses on formulas, and yes, I am just now getting to them 3 weeks before the big test. Maybe it will be fresh on their minds as they take the test. 

So what is pi? It is the ratio of circumference to diameter. My students have learned all about ratios this year. They HOPEFULLY understand what they describe too. They got to measure all kinds of circular objects with string (circumference and diameter). Then they saw how long the string was by putting it next to a ruler. Lastly, they divided the circumference by the diameter and got something that should have been close to 3.14 (if they measured correctly).  I got really excited about pi day this week. I even got them oatmeal cream pies to eat. Not only did we have centers, but I read them Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi. I used my voices as I read, but my voice now is a little scratchy because I hissed like a dragon too many times. My kiddos crack me up with the things they get a kick out of.

They got to turn in a project this week too. They had to make a net (a solid laid out flat) and a solid. My incentive for turning it in.... drum roll... do the project=get to participate in pi day.... not do the project=take a test and not participate in pi day. Yes, I am quite a harsh teacher, but it sure got their projects in. I only had 4 people NOT turn in all the pieces of their project. One of those people had 1/2 the project. 

We even got the balls back at recess. They had the recess toys taken away a LONG time ago because they were being rough/hitting us teachers (accidently). They seemed to be causing some little fights so we stopped letting them have them. We told them they had to have less than 10 people on silent lunch to get them back. It has taken them MONTHS, but they finally did it. YAY blue team!

We had good ol' wonderful Wednesday this week. Brian (science teammate) and I had a wii and guitar hero world tour room. The kids loved it. After having trouble getting everything working, we had fun ourselves too. The batteries were dead in every wiimote and the drumset. The disk kept deciding it didn't want to be read, but everything was fine. The kids were so patient with us and it made our lives so much easier. :)

The week started and ended on a good note. Okay, I'm off my school soapbox now, but I don't know what else to talk about right now so that's the end of this post...bye now.