“Giftedness is not what you do or how hard you work. It is who you are. You think differently. You experience life intensely. You care about injustice. You seek meaning. You appreciate and strive for the exquisite. You are painfully sensitive. You are extremely complex. You cherish integrity. Your truth-telling has gotten you in trouble. Should 98% of the population find you odd, seek the company of those who love you just the way you are. You are not broken. You do not need to be fixed. You are utterly fascinating. Trust yourself!”

Linda Silverman~Gifted Development Center Denver


Monday, 11 March 2013

HUGE PI DAY CELEBRATION AND FREEBIES




March 14th is PI Day.  I have never celebrated this day with my class before.   The main reason I have never celebrated it would be that the date falls during our March Break holiday.  I LOVE all things math...well things that make math more interesting and engaging.  My class and I will celebrating PI Day on the 18th of March, which is the first day AFTER our spring break.  Using a variety of resources, I have put together a package of engaging and hands-on activities for the students to investigate.  

I previously wrote a post which featured my colleague Cindy's PI DAY poster.  She was inspired by the work of Valerie King on TpT.  I have been using and blogging about Valerie's posters quite a bit this year.  I LOVE her work.  I pestered poor Valerie until she created this fantastic poster as a FREEBIE.  I think that really shows how awesome she is as a person and as a teacher.  Thank you Valerie for continuing to inspire ME and others with your great artwork!



I also found the following activity on TpT and thought it looked like great fun for my students.  If you have the book "Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi"  by Cindy Neuschwander you might want to download this FREEBIE as well.  I found a PPT of the book online and am using it with the activity.  You can also find a version of the book on Youtube.




CLICK HERE TO GO TO TPT

My students are also going to make PI Day bracelets.  I found the  activity pictured below here on TPT.  The students will use pony beads (which I bought at the local dollar store) to create their own bracelet representing the numbers in PI.  It's kind of like a three-dimensional glyph:)  I think this will be great for the kinesthetic learners in my class.



I guess you could say I have caught the PI DAY bug and I decided to make a few of my own activities.  I know that students love cootie catchers, but I have never had a chance to use one with this class.  I have made a simple one that the students can use to review some of the information they will learn while doing their PI DAY activities.  I am very interested in seeing how they turn out!  If you use the cootie catcher with your class, please be sure to come back and leave me a comment!
CLICK ON THE IMAGE ABOVE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR OWN COPY FOR FREE


My students love to write poetry.  We have a monthly "Poetry Share" in my classroom where the students bring in the poetry they have collected and authored during the previous four weeks.  To give them some extra inspiration, I created a student worksheet with instructions on how to write PI-KU poetry.  You can download the instructions for writing your own 
PI-KU HERE.

Just added a new FREEBIE from TPT. Pink Cat Studio (yay! another Canadian!) has allowed me to post her free poster for you to download and add to your growing list of fun PI Day materials.  Click on the image below to download your own copy of this super adorable poster.








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11 comments:

  1. lizC11 March 2013 at 09:12

    I remember celebrating Pi Day in high school! Love your ideas for making Pi Day fun! :)

    -Liz
    TheHappyTeacher

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    Replies
    1. Ms.M from Teachingisagift11 March 2013 at 10:39

      Thanks Liz! I had not even heard of Pi Day until I started teaching gifted students. Each year it seems to fall during our spring break holiday but I decided this year, what the heck we'll do it the day we get back! My students are really excited..but that might just be because some of them think it's PIE day:)

      Delete
  2. Mary Bauer11 March 2013 at 09:48

    I love Pi Day. I will celebrate with my fourth graders this week.

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    Replies
    1. Ms.M from Teachingisagift11 March 2013 at 10:40

      Have a great time! I am celebrating on the 18th as I am enjoying my spring break this week. Hope you have lots of fun. I can't wait to make the bracelets personally:)

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  3. Pinkadots Elementary11 March 2013 at 10:50

    I used to love Pi Day as a student. Now I only teach Reading/Writing, I still might have to stick a little celebration in the day some how! :) Thanks for checking out my site, I am your newest follower.

    Pinkadots Elementary

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  4. Ms.M from Teachingisagift11 March 2013 at 11:59

    Awesome! I love new followers. I think you can use something fun to celebrate PI Day even if you only teach reading/writing. You can have them read about the history of PI Day and then write a journal response. Or you could have them use the PI-KU poetry idea I posted:) Have a great week!

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  5. Andrea Brown - Cheers To School11 March 2013 at 18:37

    Hi Ms. M! I love your Pi Day post! Thank you for featuring my Pi Day Bracelets! What a great idea to create Pi-ku poems. There are so many great freebies to add to my Pi day collection! I'm a new follower and thanks for finding me on TpT!

    Andrea
    Cheers To School

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  6. Ms.M from Teachingisagift11 March 2013 at 19:22

    Andrea,
    Glad you didn't mind me featuring your bracelets but I LOVE the idea and wanted everyone to know about it. I even get to use beads I had left over from a project I did last year! I just know the kids are going to love making the bracelets. Thanks again!

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  7. Sandi 15 March 2013 at 10:30

    I love the pi-ku poem! What a lot of pi ideas. It almost (but not quite) made me wish that I taught older children. I tried to join your linky, but it is closed.

    sandi
    rubberboots and elf shoes

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ms.M from Teachingisagift15 March 2013 at 10:43

    Sorry about the linky! It was a shared linky with TBA and I guess they had set it to close after Pi Day was over:( Thanks for coming over though:) I loved what you did and now I will add those things to my shopping list before I have another senior moment!

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  9. Unknown13 March 2014 at 19:44

    Thank you!!

    ReplyDelete

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