I didn't think they'd do it!

My students are awesome.
In honor of Pi Day, I gave my math students a challenge to see who could recite from memory the most digits of pi. See my previous post about that.
Since then, my homeroom has gone wild with the idea and when I challenged them further with the goal of reaching 314 digits of pi, I thought it was a far enough point to leave it at that. A few kids left the pack and traded the lead for the most digits recited and they had fun going back and forth. It was cool to watch them support each other, trying to memorize new sections.
On that Friday, one kid came up to me and told me that he was going to do it. On Monday he pointed his finger at me and said I was going down. I smiled at him, thinking that was just trash talk. Today he came in and told me that he was going to do it today. After an initial run, he forgot a 2-digit combination in the 250+ range, but when I gave him the number combo, he then ran through the rest with no trouble. He later came to me ready to do it and as he began, students began to gather around to watch. When he hit the former trouble spot, you could sense the crowd getting even more excited. I had to cover my mouth as I was smiling while he calmly recited the last 30 numbers in the series. When he reached the 314th digit, he went on to the 321st digit to the cheers of his classmates. The whole class erupted into a huge excited celebration that took us to lunch.
So now I will honor my part of the challenge and get my hair dyed blond. I will probably do it over our spring break, which begins in a week and a half from now.

An Amazing Slice of Pi!

On Friday, March 13, my math class celebrated Pi Day (a day early) to mark the calendar's closest approximation of the important ratio of pi. Pi, represented by the Greek letter (this program won't let me put the symbol here!), is the relationship between a circle's diameter its circumference. It is called an irrational number because its digits continue without end and no pattern yet discovered. So far, computers have calculated pi to over 1 trillion places! Reports claim that The Guinness Book of World Records has that someone has recited pi from memory to 67,000 digits! There are other unverified or unofficial claims for higher achievements, but really, let's ask ourselves the question that most of us shake our heads to: Why? I guess the peak of Mt. Everest would never have been reached with that kind of attitude, so I challenged my math students to see how many they could remember and recite. At first only a few students took on the task. One student who bravely took the first challenge reached 20 digits the next day. She earned a prize for her efforts. Since then, several students from my homeroom have taken on the challenge and it has gotten their competitive juices flowing, with a handful of them coming close to recalling 100 digits of pi. I didn’t think anyone would get that far, so I offered up a $5 prize as an enticement. That was achieved on the same day I mentioned it! As of this moment, I have two students who have blasted through the 100 digit mark with the highest number of digits recited from memory being 116, with seven others not far behind. One of the students who is in the lead is one that needs that positive attention and it has been a joy to see him get excited with doing this. I hope that he can see that he can do anything if he puts his mind to it! I have also thrown down the challenge that if a student at our school can recite from memory 314 digits of pi, I will reprise my agreement to dye my hair blond again!