Pi Day Fun in the Primary Grades

Don't you just love a good math holiday, an event that reminds our students that math can be fun? Now that we've passed the 100th Day of School, the ultimate math teaching holiday, here comes Pi Day. For the primary grades, you ask? Well, the answer is yes! Here are some ideas for having Pi Day fun in the primary grades, too!

Of course, the math behind pi is tough stuff for our littles. but the idea of a number that goes on infinitely without repeating - well, we all know how they LOVE the idea of infinity and totally feel like big shots when they use the word! Plus, here's another fact I recently learned that you'll want to share with your little math aficionados: Pi contains every single possible combination of numbers - not just non-repeating, but totally random!

Here are a few quick ideas to help you introduce Pi Day to your students.

• Get that "WOW" response from your primary students by showing them this display of the first 10,000 digits of pi on your interactive board, courtesy of The University of Utah.
• What is pi? Well, it isn't pie (although there's no doubt that plenty of pies will be floating around schools on March 14th!)  Here's a Greek alphabet to show your students.  See if they can find some similarities to the English alphabet.
• And then there's that decimal point. After you introduce the term, show your students how to read pi as "3-point-1-4-15-9-2-6", etc. It's also a great moment for making a connection with reading amounts of money, where the decimal point of course is read as "and". 

Because they're so hard to find, I've put together a set of Pi Day activities for the primary grades! 

These activities are different from most that you'll see. First of all, these are all math activities that practice math skills, like addition, subtraction, and using the 120 chart.  They are not craftivities or coloring pages. There's a color-by-number pi sign page (lower left above), but then it turns into a (drum roll....) math game!

Let's take a closer look!

Here's the color-by-number activity.

If you have lots of time or plan to do several days of pi activities, have your students color the page using the code one day and use the completed pages to play the game the next day. But if you're short on time, just print copies of the answer key and use those as your game boards, along with the set of directions that's included.

You'll also find two 120 chart games in this set, "Happy Pi Day" and "PI, Not Pie!", both for practice with skills like add/subtract one and add/subtract ten. Games with hundred charts and 120 charts are good practice for our firsties.  These are games that you'll use long beyond Pi Day!

What else is in this Pi Day set? Two easy prep addition and subtraction games  - just print and add dice!

Click here or on any of the pictures above to see this set of six activities at my store.

Edit, 2020:  Here are some more Pi Day activities that use the 120 chart.  In the first game, your students will add and subtract ten from numbers 1-120, and then write the answer in the correct blank space on the chart.  Bringing up the level in the second game, students will add and subtract multiples of ten.

Click here or on the picture to see this set in my TpT store!

Happy Teaching!