Monday, March 16, 2015

The Pi Day of the Century = 3.14.15

Three years ago I realized that this year's Pi Day would be monumental. It's been on the news, in the papers, and all over the blogs. Even non-math people have recognized the bigness of it. And as prophesied, Chuck and I threw a big party for it. We did nearly everything I said, only omitting the time factor (who can party at 9:26?!) and the throwing of hot dogs (we threw fat popsicle sticks instead). We invited lots of friends and lots of them came. It was fun and crazy. I just wish I had started planning three years ago. Oh well.

Now I document all that we did. We tried to have lots of things for the kids to do. I'm not sure how many did them, but that's okay. At this station was a calculate pi activity using M&Ms.


Over here we made bracelets or necklaces. The digits of pi corresponded to a color of bead and the kids were supposed to string them according to pi. But you know I didn't care if some kids went home with all-pink bracelets, right?


And here we had a pi maze, pi word search, and pi ku.


We played "Pin the cherry on the pi" on the window. Chuck cleverly thought to use the big pi as window decoration. I liked it.


Oh, and notice that tiny green pi on the great big pi? That was for a scavenger hunt. The boys stuck pis (that looks so wrong!) all over the house, six of which had stickers. Then the kids had to go around finding those special ones. Not only did Ollie find all of them, he took them off the wall and brought them to me. It meant a delayed start for that activity.


We did a "Hundred Pi Dash" in the street, but sadly no pictures. There was a kids heat followed by a mens heat. Both were pretty intense. Also unpictured was the pi recitation contest. One friend sat and memorized all 27 digits in the banner (see above) and was able to recite them all. He was the first and only contestant. Brady for the win! Also unpictured was throwing popsicle sticks on the ground to estimate pi. We got 3.7, not bad.

And we wanted to have a pie eating contest, but how could I make it work without being so overly gluttonous? Use oatmeal cream pies, of course! The kids just ate them and the first with an empty mouth won. But for the adults, we made them kneel at the table with their hands behind their backs. Chuck easily won (he has so few talents, but eating quickly is one). But it really was as gross as it sounds.


Then, of course, the pie table. People brought so many wonderful pies, even though you can't see them because this only shows what I made. The winner was this gorgeous chocolate silk. We should have had more categories than just "best sweet" and "best savory" (my savory hand pies were the only entry in that category). Maybe "Best Pi Themed" and...something else.)


Oh, and I made medals for the winners of certain events. They were the worst! Total failures. Some day I'll get that figured out.

And this was breakfast on Sunday morning. People were terrible and LEFT THEIR PIES for us to eat. Which means, for me to eat. Terrible, terrible people.




In all, it was a fun, crazy party. Maybe next time I won't do such a long run in the morning and wear myself out before it even begins.

5 comments:

  1. What an awesome party!!! Looks so fun. And your activities are so clever!!

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  2. Awesome! Wish I could have been there.

    What's with the hot dog throwing? I didn't get it. Maybe because I'm not a math nerd?

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  3. Erin, so super cool! Those ideas are just amazing and awesome. Wow, what a day!

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  4. Such a great party!! We all had fun. And Henry made sure to do every single one of the kids' activities. He even wrote a pi-ku!

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