On Sunday, I read and the filed away Grace’s post on Pi-ku poetry. That’s haiku for Pi Day. It was too brilliant to not bring it to my 6th graders.
I think I’ve mentioned that I teach gifted 6th graders. So, I shouldn’t have been surprised when a hand when up at my list of the digits of pi to the 11th decimal place:
3.14159265359
“Ms. Gillespie, I think it should be 8 then 9 at the end,” said a student who at 12 is a better mathematician than I will ever be. Heck, most of my students will go on to do Math coursework beyond my comprehension. But, I am the adult in the room and I do actually possess some mathematical knowledge. In fact the Math I know, I know with confidence.
“What’s the rule about rounding if the next digit is 5 or greater?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah,” responded the student and a few others nodded as my heart swelled.
It was a great Pi Day Eve.
booksandbassets 