Pi Day for Older Kids

I recently shared a few ideas for celebrating Pi Day with younger kids, but of course it’s also fun to do Pi Day with kids who are old enough to know what pi actually is.

You could have a pie making (or eating!) contest with older kids to celebrate, or have them write about their favorite kind of pie (pizza or otherwise).

Since numerical pi is kind of a code, you can make bracelets or beaded projects using the numbers of pi with beads in different colors to correspond to each number (so every 1 is green, every 2 is blue, for example) or make it simpler with one color for odd numbers and one for even numbers. Both are shown in this activity from Pink Stripey Socks.

You could also do the same color with different numbers of beads for each digit, for example you start with three beads of one color, then one of a different color, then four of another color and so on. Our Family Code has an example of this done in a necklace to 50 digits.

That post has more great pi related ideas you can do, including a color wheel activity, a graphing mosaic, perler bead suncatchers and more.

Rock Your Homeschool has a good collection of Pi Day printables for older kids, which includes a word search, coloring pages, a pie baking math activity, a page of pies to measure and a chart for measuring your own circular things, among other activities.

Finally, try your hand at some Pi-lish! This isn’t a real language but a way of writing or speaking where the words correspond to the digit in pi. So a sentence written in Pi-lish would start with a three-letter word, then a one-letter word, then four, then one, then five and so on. Royal Baloo has printables for practicing your Pi-lish and ultimately writing a poem in this style.

[Photo: Pink Stripey Socks.]

Lots of Americans seem to think that May 5 is Mexican Independence Day, but that holiday actually falls on Sept. 16.

May 5 is the celebration of the Battle of Puebla, in which the Mexicans defeated the French in 1862. Independence Day marks the beginning of their fight for independence from Spain in 1810. That was the day of what’s known as El Grito de Dolores, or the cry of Dolores, for when the Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla rang the church bells at his church in Dolores and declared that Mexico should be free from Spanish rule.

They would fight for their freedom until 1821 when they finally gained independence.

Fabulous Classroom has a little of the history and ideas for celebrating the holiday for all age groups. There’s also a link to a good video in that post about the real story of Mexican Independence Day.

Twinkl also has a good tops about the history and different activities, discussion ideas, crafts and foods that can be incorporated into lessons at school or used at home.

I also found a few pins that no longer link to a website but include good information on Mexican Independence Day, including some questions for students to answer based on the reading. You can find more printables and questions for kids from TX Homeschool Mama on Etsy (also available in Spanish).

You can find a lot more paid resources about Mexican Independence Day at Teachers Pay Teachers.

Mexican flag crafts are a fun option for celebrating Mexican Independence Day (though the current iteration of their flag has only been in use since 1968). Kids Activities Blog has a free Mexican flag printable and a few different ideas for decorating it including dot markers and torn tissue paper.

You can also find some great Mexican crafts at Red Ted Art. The post includes all sorts of Mexican inspired projects including Day of the Dead crafts, Frida Kahlo pinatas and upcycled musical instruments. I love the giant paper flowers they shared from Honestly WTF.

Have you read?

Leave a Reply