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.