Happy Pi Day!

Thanks to Blizzard Stella, Pi Day will not be celebrated on its day at Castleton Elementary School this year.  Nevertheless, for the past week or so, the 5th grade Reading Ambassadors have been preparing for 3.14 by reading math picture books to K-2 students. Also, the 4th grade Dewey Duty helpers and Reading Ambassadors will enjoy pie, round treats, spin around in hoola hoops, watch this short PBS video and talk math in the library when we have our belated Pi Party on 3.15 or when the snow melts.

Who knew there were so many math picture books?

And there are way more than this!  These are just the ones I pulled in my own library. There are SO many more in the public library catalog.

Fifth Graders Reading to K-2

Mrs. Golden's first graders 

Mrs. Pryde's first graders

Mrs. Cook and Mrs. Macri's kindergarteners

Mrs. Roe and Mrs. Seres's second graders

Mrs. Kosinski's first graders

We wish we could have read to everyone but scheduling was tough and we're glad we were able to squeeze all these classes in!  One of our favorite books to read aloud was That's a Possibility: A Book About What Might Happen by Bruce Goldstone. I love it so much that I have two copies in the library!

I just received this book in my most recent Junior Library Guild box.  

 I've always loved this one combining math and cooking.  So logical!

Did you the first computer programmer lived many, many years before the Commodore 64? Another gem I received from JLG but would have definitely purchased on my own if I hadn't. It was even part of our Sibert Smackdown this year.

Lastly, a tribute 2 Amy Krouse Rosenthal.  Such a loss 2 the kidlit community.  My thoughts are with her family and close friends. I read her Modern Love essay on the treadmill a few weeks ago and just wept.

The kids wrote this review before we knew that Amy had passed.💔 

Happy Pi/Pie Day!

Is that an amazing smorgasbord or what, just to celebrate Pi Day?!  What a fun afternoon we had!  And the pizza isn't even on the table.  Apple pie, pi cookies, mini-pies with Pi s on them, key lime pie (baked by my son!), brownies and circle shaped York Peppermint Patty's and even sphere shaped dum-dums.  

The first activity we did was a scavenger hunt around the library with Mrs. Pryde's first graders and the 4th grade Dewey Duty kids.  The Dewey kids drew the pies last week and Mrs. Warland glued them on poster board, drew the Pi on them, cut them into 8ths and then hid them all around the library.  We had a pizza (above), pumpkin (below) and apple to find and put together.  It was fun!

It was great watching the 1st and 4th graders work together.  Teamwork makes the dream work, right?!

When the 4th graders left for lunch, the 5th graders came in.  They had a way different task and activity--Make a chain with as many digits of pi as they can.  See the white paper on the table?  That has 100 digits of pi.  The colored pieces of paper have numbers written on them.  This was fun! Thanks to Mrs. Balogh, our math coach, for helping us out with this project and of course, cutting all the number strips!

He couldn't believe that the chain was longer than he was!

Finally, to wrap up the whole celebration, Mr. Reischer's class came in and read from Sarah Weeks's Pie Reader's Theatre. It was probably a little over the first graders' heads but we talked about it a little in their terms and encouraged them to read the book with their families.  

All in all, it was such a fun event!  I loved including Dewey Duty and Mrs. Pryde's students.  I couldn't have done it without Mrs. Warland, Mrs. Balogh, Mrs. Pryde, Mr. Reischer and the parents that sent in treats.  Such a collaborative effort!  Happy 3.14 Day!

Party (PIe)time in the Library!

I never need an excuse to party.  I think I've actually mentioned that before.  Remember the big book birthday bash we had for Surf's Up?  Yeah, book releases, math symbols, author birthdays...Wait?! Math?!  Exactly.  In fact, if you knew me at all in HS and college, you would even be more perplexed!

Well, there is that unusual PI DAY--March 14.  And what better place to celebrate than in the library two months before the fabulous author of our beloved, Pie, visits on 5.10?!  So, we're throwing a bit of a party with the kids who have been working on reading EVERY Sarah Weeks book written (in and out of print) that is appropriate for first grade and those helpers I have in the library that don't necessarily work with 3.14, but do work with decimals in the Dewey Section on a daily basis.

Mrs. Balogh, a HS math teacher and math coach here at the elementary school, and the incomparable Mrs. Warland, will be helping me out as well as Mrs. Pryde, the first grade teacher.  We'll have pizza pie, apple pie, and if I'm as ambitious as I say I will be, cookies with the pi symbol on them.  We plan to have activities of course, read a little from Sarah's book, maybe even Reader's Theatre because that's one of Sarah's passions. A great way to begin a countdown to 5.10! #cantwait