Pi Day
On March 14th we celebrated Pi Day. A rare time to enjoy mathematics with an excuse to use hands on activities. This year in Math Academic Support classes I wanted to be sure to include some type of food source. Being on a teachers budget with astronomical student loan bills (1 more year until I get over half of the forgiven for teaching mathematics, I can't wait), I wanted to find the cheapest food source possible.
Naturally my thoughts led to Pie; what is a pie day without pies. I thought about the last time I was at the store and those little pies would be nowhere near filling enough for the middle schoolers I have. So my next thought was pizza, but it was 9:30am when we would be celebrating so I settled on Cheese Bread and Cinnamon Sticks from Papa Murphys. This worked out better than I could've ever expected. For $10 dollars I was able to get two circles of cheese bread and one circle of cinnamon bread. (These breads are probably not a bad alternative to circular foods with OK nutrition)
Prior to baking and eating we calculated the area of the breads. Papa Murphy's has designed the layout of their bread perfectly for a middle school level problem. They had to calculate the entire circle then subtract the sauce that was in the middle! (Also they measured diameters to find the radii).
While they waited for the pies to cook they played an NCTM activity called mono-pi-ly. A game based on calculating the radius/diameter, and math vocabulary given certain numbers and clues.
So from now on Pi Day will be Papa Murphy's Day for the Rest of My Career : )
Naturally my thoughts led to Pie; what is a pie day without pies. I thought about the last time I was at the store and those little pies would be nowhere near filling enough for the middle schoolers I have. So my next thought was pizza, but it was 9:30am when we would be celebrating so I settled on Cheese Bread and Cinnamon Sticks from Papa Murphys. This worked out better than I could've ever expected. For $10 dollars I was able to get two circles of cheese bread and one circle of cinnamon bread. (These breads are probably not a bad alternative to circular foods with OK nutrition)
Prior to baking and eating we calculated the area of the breads. Papa Murphy's has designed the layout of their bread perfectly for a middle school level problem. They had to calculate the entire circle then subtract the sauce that was in the middle! (Also they measured diameters to find the radii).
While they waited for the pies to cook they played an NCTM activity called mono-pi-ly. A game based on calculating the radius/diameter, and math vocabulary given certain numbers and clues.
So from now on Pi Day will be Papa Murphy's Day for the Rest of My Career : )
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