Rockin' it in Fifth Grade: Rockin' the STEAM Pi Day Celebration

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Rockin' the STEAM Pi Day Celebration

My class celebrated Pi Day investigating Pi.

I began the day reading Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi.

This story reveals the relationship between diameter and circumference. After the story, the students investigated this relationship using two different size lids and this paper.

First they marked the diameter of the lid four times on the line.

Next, they numbered the diameter marks.

After that, they rolled the lid on the line one complete revolution and marked where it stopped.

They discovered that this location was just past the 3 diameters mark, no matter the size of the lid. They decided that location was 3.14.

They concluded that it takes 3.14 diameters to make the circumference.

Later in the day I read Sir Cumference and the First Round Table.

This is a great book, and I think I would read it first next time since it introduces circumference, diameter, and radius. The characters are Sir Cumference, Lady Di of Ameter, and their son Radius.

The other activity we did today was to create a visual representation of Pi. I pushed out a Google Sheet template to the students through Google Classroom. They filled in the cells above each of the first 36 digits of Pi. This creates a skyscraper skyline.

Students then worked on filling in the night sky with objects from our Night Sky observation last week....moon and constellations. Some added lights to the buildings. These are still a work in progress.

One student even made it "snow."

It was a fun day of learning about Pi.

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Meet Marianne

Marianne is a fifth grade teacher in Los Osos this year. She previously taught for Mariposa County Unified and Orcutt Union school districts. This is her 24th year in the educational field as a classroom teacher. Marianne is committed to providing students with an innovative 21st century curriculum that includes engaging, high quality instruction to expand students' opportunities for learning. This requires taking risks to get results, like when she moved all the desks out of her classroom in pursuit of new ways to use best practices to highly engage students. In order to prepare students to be future ready, she provides structures for learning through teamwork and whole class activities, which allow students to interact, think creatively, and be a part of each other’s learning. She has successfully implemented 1:1 iPads and Chromebooks with her class. Marianne’s innovative use of technology, creative lesson design, collaboration with peers, continual pursuit of learning, and being a leader on campus earned her the Mariposa County Teacher of the Year award in 2015. She is also a CUE Rock Star Teacher.

The students in Marianne’s class, and their families, are kept well informed through her use of a closed class Facebook group, class Twitter feed, and Class Dojo. The messaging services on all three of these makes it possible for parents to easily and effectively communicate with her “after hours.”

Being a part of the school community is also important to Marianne. She believes that her work on campus does not end at the classroom door. She is fully committed to the school as a whole, taking on extra duties like painting murals, heading up the spirit wear orders, organizing fundraisers, creating the yearbook, managing the school’s Facebook page, providing professional development to other teachers, and being on the Leadership Team and Educational Technology Team.