
{This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our Disclosure Policy for details.}
Each UNIT STUDY includes suggestions of books to READ, ideas to WRITE, crafts to CREATE, more to EXPLORE, snacks to ENJOY and other ways to LEARN about a specific topic! To read more about the concepts behind my UNIT STUDIES, read this.
If you find it handy to have a simplified printable of these suggestions, you can find one, along with several free printables, here in the FREE Pi Day Unit Study Printable Pack.
Otherwise, read on for a more detailed version with links embedded!
{Note: The links are pink! Just think, “pink link” if you are wanting to follow a link to something.}
INTRO: I have to admit that I have never {as a kid, classroom teacher or homeschool mom} celebrated PI DAY. I never even knew it was a thing until a few years ago when I saw something about it on FaceBook. But, as my son has been slugging his way through Algebra and Geometry this year, I decided it was high time we had some PI DAY fun around here!
READ: Happy Pi Day to You by Bonnie Worth is a rather fun Cat-in-the-Hat book and the perfect way to start your PI DAY UNIT STUDY! It’s in the classic Cat-in-the-Hat style with silly rhyming and funny images but also pertinent facts! These books are marketed as a way to “introduce beginning readers to important basic concepts about the world we live in.” Personally, I find them to be a great way to introduce older kids to more complicated concepts in an easy-to-read style. Especially, when you use the mini Book Companion Pack found in the FREE Pi Day Unit Study Printable Pack, kids of several ages and levels can use this book as a great intro to PI DAY.
Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi by Cindy Neuschwander is part of a clever math series for kids. This math adventure is centered around a quest to rescue Sir Cumference by solving a math riddle with a magic number {that just happens to be PI!}
Might I Interest You in a Piece of Pi? by Miftees is simply a book of PI puns. Fun and funny!
It Happened One Pi Day by Eric Schmidt is an interesting approach to helping people {kids included} memorize the first 600 digits of PI. I personally have no interest in checking this off my bucket list but the concept is cool and it does make for an intriguing visual aid for how infinite PI really is.
How to Bake Pi: An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics by Eugenia Cheng is something geared more towards adults and more math-minded teens and covers many more math topics than just PI but, for those who want to expand their learning beyond what is found at a kid-level, this is actually a fun and clever read.
WRITE: The FREE Pi Day Unit Study Printable Pack includes three different writing activities.
This page just asks kids to make a list of circle-shaped objects.
This next page allows the kids to write as many PI facts as they can inside the lined circle.
And this third page is a bit more fun and engaging. It asks kids to write three full PI facts but then to write .14 of another fact. That last partial fact is then used as a way to see if anybody can figure out the rest of it!
LEARN: If you don’t have access to any of the books mentioned or if you are a mama like me who tends to “plan” short notice, no worries! I’ve got ya covered with this Pi Day Fact Pack. It’s simple and to the point but fun with a few ways to look at the most important facts of PI along with a few activities to cement the concepts. It’s not free but with discount code HappyPIDay, it’ll cost less than $3.14!
CREATE: This Sidewalk Chalk Pi Activity not only teaches all about PI, it disappears in the rain and doesn’t need to be stored! Gotta love that!
This free Pop Art Pi Page is super cute and involves just coloring a whole bunch of circles! Younger kids can do it in a simple fashion while older kids could definitely turn it into a work of {pop} art!
But my absolute favorite way to explore PI in a creative way is this PI in the Sky Cityscape! Not only does it allow kids to see the actual digits of PI, it allows each kid to take the number as far as they want. Plus, it can be done super simple with graph paper and colored pencils or watercolors can be used to turn it into a real piece of art!
ENJOY: What to eat for PI DAY seems pretty obvious to me: PIE! But, I suppose you could make things a little more well-rounded, ha ha ha, and serve circular food all day long!
Pancakes or Eggos for breakfast would be fun!
Lunch could be either uncrustable sandwiches or something served on pita bread. Both would be great with sliced cucumbers on the side.
Dinner would need to be pizza, of course!
And, then pie for dessert!
EXPLORE: {You may want to start your PI exploration by printing out this free visual aid.}
Legos are a family favorite around here but we usually use them just to create elaborate Star Wars ships but when I saw the idea to build PI out of Legos, I knew we needed to give it a go! It’s really simple. You just need a written/printed version of the number PI, a baseplate and several square Legos. Some call it a 3-D Cityscape of PI. Others call it a Pi Graph. We just called it hands-on fun and a great visual representation of PI!
Here is a link to an easy hands-on activity for nearly all ages. It shows how to easily explore PI with string.
And here is a link to a much more complex hands-on way to explore PI. It is geared for older kids and will take more time but it allows for a concrete understanding of diameter, PI and circumference.
This link takes you to the annual Pi Day Challenge. It does require you to sign up but the process is quick and simple and then gives you access to some very cool but challenging online PI-related puzzles.
If you have an early learner who wants to join in on the PI DAY fun, here are a few simple Pi Day activities for them. They’re more circle-related than focused on PI, but still fun for the little ones!
There are loads of free videos that cover the topic of PI. Here is a super quick {less than two minutes} video that showcases pies to teach about PI.
Brain-Pop has one that lasts 3 minutes and 14 seconds {so clever of them.}
And, here’s the best one, in my opinion. It’s from TedEd and does a great job of explaining the history of PI and how we still use it today…and all under 4 minutes.
But, if you want to take this PI thing well beyond simple circles, check out this Your Life in Pi video. It’s mind-blowing!
