Pi Day Activities for Little Kids

March 4, 2023 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

Pi Day is celebrated on March 14 (because the date is 3.14, the beginning of the number for pi), and it’s a great time for kids of all ages to craft with circles, play with numbers, and maybe even eat some actual pie.

If your kids are younger but you still want to have some fun with this holiday, read on. (Activities for older kids to come!)

To introduce the idea of pi to younger kids, explain that it’s a number that expresses the relationship between a circle’s diameter (the measurement across the center from edge to edge) and its circumference (the measurement of the outside edge, all the way around).

Pi is an infinite number and the same digit never repeats (meaning there are, for example, never two 3s in a row).

Since pi is about circles you can make circle prints, cut our circles, use circles in art projects, eat round snacks. Go on a circle hunt! Play ring around the Rosie, or follow the leader in a circle. So many easy ideas.

Pieces by Polly talks about making fraction plates, repeating patterns with pies, making art with circles and making tiny snack pies.

Tinker Lab has a cute pi day printable art challenge. Can you use three colors to decorate the grids with different patterns in 14 minutes?

Royal Baloo has a fun printable pi board game where you collect cards with the goal of getting as many digits of pi as you can.

Teach Beside Me has a printable pi puzzle that goes together to show 25 digits of pi. It’s not as easy as it sounds because the digits repeat.

And this free pi poster from Cindy Lam at Teachers Pay Teachers can be filled out with one child or a whole classroom and includes fun things like listing your favorite thing that’s a circle or words that have the letters pi in them.

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Games to Make with LEGO Bricks

When my daughter was younger she had a ton of LEGO bricks, and I’m honestly a little sad we got rid of most of them because there are so many fun things to do with LEGOs outside of the kits you bought them in.

I love seeing all the ideas people have for LEGO building challenges, and I have shared some ideas for LEGO games before, but I saw one on Pinterest the other day that I felt was worth a mention.

This one is for those ’80s and ’90s kids who spent sick days home from school watching “The Price is Right”: LEGO Plinko!

For those who don’t know about Plinko, the original was a giant peg board set up at an angle and the contestant would drop a flat disc at the top of the board. As it moved down the board it would hit the pegs and change the way it moved, and there would be different prizes in the slots at the bottom where the piece would land.

This version from Play Party Game works on the same principle, using LEGO bricks to make the game board and marbles in place of the Plinko disc since your game board isn’t flat.

You can really use whatever bricks you have for this build, and while it shows all the pegs the same size and evenly spaced, you can play with different configurations and see what happens. It’s engineering and a game!

And while you’re playing with your LEGOs, make sure to check out this post from Kids Craft Room that includes minute to win it style games you can do with LEGO. From speed sorting to tower building as fast as you can, these ideas are sure to get you thinking about different ways to play with LEGO.

And if you need even more ideas, check out my post with LEGO building challenges you can print out for kids (and adults!) to try.

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