Today, Y6 celebrated Pi Day by investigating the relationship (ratio) between a circle’s circumference and its diameter. By using string (a non-standard measure), we were able to measure the circumference of the circular objects. We then used a ruler to measure the string and find the actual measurement of the circumference. Once we had found the circumference, we found the diameter of the circle.
To investigate the ratio of circumference to diameter, we used this formula:
c ÷ d
After we had repeated this a number of times, we looked at our findings and discussed what we noticed. Lots of us, who had been measuring accurately, found that all the answers to c ÷ d had a 3 in the ones column and a number of digits after the decimal place – we learned that we were getting close to Pi! Some of us were incredibly close and found answers such as 3.114 and 3.15! Mrs Hopkin told us that, if we had been extremely accurate in our measurements, we should have found that all our answers were the same: Pi!
We learned that Pi is a number with billions (even trillions!) of decimal places. We are trying to remember Pi’s first 5 decimal places (some of us have challenged ourselves to remember the first 10): 3.14159265359. How many can you remember? Pi is represented by the Greek letter.
We learned that today is Pi Day because in America they write the short date with the month first, so today’s date would be: 3.14.2022 meaning the first three digits are the same as Pi!
