Thanks to Joe Stokes for my beautiful journal! I'm not much of a journaler, but I hope to dedicate some time each day to recording my thoughts. I know I'll be glad I did! I'm going to share an edited version of my entries here with you. I hope you enjoy. :)
T-minus six days.
We've been planning for this trip for so long, it's hard to believe the day is almost here.
Christians don't own the market on good works, or even just good people, but I do wonder how people can make it through hard times without looking toward God. I know I need His strength right now. I've been through rough patches in my life, but it does seem like it's all coming at me from every angle these days.
I know I was given the gifts of leadership and teaching. It's just that sometimes, I wish they hadn't been bestowed upon me. That's A LOT of responsibility, and I'm weary. I want someone else to carry those burdens for awhile. Give me the gift of patience! Or compassion! I could stand to sit in the back of the room with my mouth shut for once.
That box I've kept locked up- the Amelia box? Well it burst wide open today. I can barely stand to write about leaving her. What will I do next week? The thought makes me physically ill. I look at our schedule and the words "free time" induce panic. Lord, keep me busy. Don't let me think about my little girl at home, asking for me.
That she's sick right now doesn't help. That I can't stop her from getting hurt; that it's my fault, is unbearable. I want to take her hurt away and make it mine. Let me hurt for my child.
EC's surgery is tomorrow. I know she'll be a trooper and make it through with flying colors. Her poor mom though. I can see the anguish in her eyes. I pray for peace for her. She will not rest, I know, until this ordeal is over.
God giving his son for us is the symbol we need to understand his love. Anyone would give their own life, their own suffering, for someone they love. But to give your child- your ONLY child- is a much greater gesture. Only a parent understands that. How we would do anything so our children never feel pain or hunger or grief.
This is what gives me anxiety about this trip. The mothers and their babies. We are the same, us mothers. We all want the same. To love our children to the fullest.
It is arrogant of me to think my life is better than theirs. This realization, which came to me recently, is what I hope will get me through. We may have cars, lavish houses, a college education; does that mean our lives are better? No. To grow up loved by your parents, community. To know God and live a simple, godly life free of distraction, that may be as God intended it. We should be so lucky!
This is my mission. To learn what love and family truly mean. This is my burden, my cross to bear.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Monday, June 4, 2012
Slacker!
I am so so so far behind on blog posts. If I think about posting, but don't actually do it, does that count? If so, I'm on top of things and you're just days behind in your reading. :)
I'll do some quick posts of what I was up to in the month of May.
Mother's Day Craft
I bought these adorable felt heart ornaments at Target's after-Christmas sale 3 for $0.10! That made it affordable for the whole sixth grade to do and we tied in a symmetry lesson as well. The kids had fun making them and I think most of them even made it home! I know moms love getting handmade gifts from their kids, no matter how old they get!
My favorite moment of the day was when I was setting all the supplies up one of the boys said, "Are we making Mother's Day gifts?"
"Yes, we are."
"Oh good. 'Cause I'm flat broke."
At least he knew he needed to do something for his mom!
End-of-Year Gifts
For the last day of school, I made little gift boxes for all my students. It was pretty inexpensive; about $1 per kid, and again, I think most of them made it home. Anytime I do these kind of things I have to accept the fact that about 25% of the kids really won't care at all and will throw it away on the way out the door, 50% will at least keep it for a little while, but 25% of the kids will really appreciate it. I do it for that 25%.
Here's the poem that goes with the items:
A little box of hope
A star so you can shine in the darkness
An eraser for life's little mistakes
A paperclip to help you hold it all together
A rubber band to remind you to be flexible
A marker to make your mark on the world
You can be as creative as you want and work within your budget to make pretty much any little items work! My steal was the favor boxes- dollar section at Target, 5 for $0.30! They weren't even marked on sale, so that was a bonus when I got to the register!
I'll do some quick posts of what I was up to in the month of May.
Mother's Day Craft
I bought these adorable felt heart ornaments at Target's after-Christmas sale 3 for $0.10! That made it affordable for the whole sixth grade to do and we tied in a symmetry lesson as well. The kids had fun making them and I think most of them even made it home! I know moms love getting handmade gifts from their kids, no matter how old they get!
My favorite moment of the day was when I was setting all the supplies up one of the boys said, "Are we making Mother's Day gifts?"
"Yes, we are."
"Oh good. 'Cause I'm flat broke."
At least he knew he needed to do something for his mom!
Space Bowl
On a whim, I decided to stage a parents versus kids Space Trivia Bowl right before the kids went to Space Camp. I had about a dozen parents show up, which was awesome. Maybe if I do it again with more warning, more can come. Anyway, all the parents and about half the kids got buzzers. We had to do it in Dana's room because the software and hardware wouldn't communicate with each other using my laptop. I finally just gave up. I made about about 30 questions on everything from Sputnik to the Shuttle program. Garrick had the highest score of course, but I was able to throw in a couple trick questions that stumped even him. A fun time was had by all. :)
End-of-Year Gifts
For the last day of school, I made little gift boxes for all my students. It was pretty inexpensive; about $1 per kid, and again, I think most of them made it home. Anytime I do these kind of things I have to accept the fact that about 25% of the kids really won't care at all and will throw it away on the way out the door, 50% will at least keep it for a little while, but 25% of the kids will really appreciate it. I do it for that 25%.
Here's the poem that goes with the items:
A little box of hope
A star so you can shine in the darkness
An eraser for life's little mistakes
A paperclip to help you hold it all together
A rubber band to remind you to be flexible
A marker to make your mark on the world
You can be as creative as you want and work within your budget to make pretty much any little items work! My steal was the favor boxes- dollar section at Target, 5 for $0.30! They weren't even marked on sale, so that was a bonus when I got to the register!
So that was the end of another year in sixth grade. What a crazy, whirlwind year! Who knows what next year will bring? Keeping my fingers crossed that someone will realize 32 kids in a class is RIDICULOUS and give us our fifth unit back. Until then, I'm not going to worry about it. I'm going to focus on my Honduras trip and making the most out of the days I get to spend there! I already have my first blog post in my head. Maybe this week I'll get it down on "paper". :)
Adios!
Sunday, May 6, 2012
The Bag Lady
I love bags. A large portion of my enviably large closet is dedicated to my bag fetish. I just can't seem to stop buying them, although I hardly need any. But I keep hoping I'll find the perfect bag. Alas, it doesn't seem to exist.
In the meantime, I have a million bags each dedicated to their own purpose. Having a baby opens one up to a whole new host of excuses to buy new bags. And yet, like the bag itself, the contents of a perfectly organized, perfectly "be-prepared-for-the-worst" diaper bag seem to elude me. My goal is to compile a list of the contents of a diaper bag at different ages and stages. I'm going to start with age 1+ because that's where I am now, but I'm going to work backwards to coming home day. I'm hoping all my mommy friends will help me and maybe even contribute pictures of the contents of their bags!
Today, these are the contents of my one-year-old daughter's diaper bag:
In the meantime, I have a million bags each dedicated to their own purpose. Having a baby opens one up to a whole new host of excuses to buy new bags. And yet, like the bag itself, the contents of a perfectly organized, perfectly "be-prepared-for-the-worst" diaper bag seem to elude me. My goal is to compile a list of the contents of a diaper bag at different ages and stages. I'm going to start with age 1+ because that's where I am now, but I'm going to work backwards to coming home day. I'm hoping all my mommy friends will help me and maybe even contribute pictures of the contents of their bags!
Today, these are the contents of my one-year-old daughter's diaper bag:
- One change of clothes (onesie and shorts for summer)
- Wipes
- 3 diapers
- hand sanitizer
- diaper cream
- Reusable bag for dirty clothes or dirty diapers
- Disposable place mats
- Wipe-off bib
- Sanitizing wipes
- One food pouch (We love the Earth's Best yogurt pouches!)
- One individual serving apple juice (I can't believe how many places do not have kid-friendly drinks!)
- Snack trap containing baby trail mix
- Blankie with paci on a strap
- Extra paci
- Sunscreen
- Sunglasses
- Teething toy
- Cosmetic bag containing: advil, tylenol, teething gel, bandaids, extra hair clips and rubber bands
- Compact umbrella
- Board book
If I get ambitious, I'll spread everything out and take a picture.
What should I have that I've forgotten? It's hard to find that line between being prepared for anything and packing everything but the kitchen sink!
*Also in my car is the "emergency bag" that contains extra diapers and wipes, a changing pad for back-of-the-car diaper changes, hand sanitizer, another food pouch, and an extra outfit. In the back seat is a bag of car toys- a stuffed dino, glo-doodle, board books, and teething toy. ALSO behind the passenger's seat is another pouch with wipes and a diaper. Can you tell I'm paranoid about running out of diapers? It hasn't happened yet!
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Very Hungry Caterpillar Button Art
I love button art. I think because A) I'm not an artist at all, but this makes me seem creative and B) it's whimsical without being too babyish. So I was going to do a very cute rainbow for Squirt's "big girl" room, but decided to go with the Very Hungry Caterpillar instead. And as a bonus, it made a very cute decoration for her party. :)
Step 1. Sketch out the shape on an artist canvas. For this project, I used an 11x14. I wish I had done larger. Buttons seem small until you're trying to do button art.
Step 2. I had to use markers for the finer details. There was no way buttons were going to cut it. I thought it would ruin the look, but it really didn't!
Step 3. Okay, so I didn't really do a step-by-step progression here, but this is where you fill everything in. I had tubs of colored buttons. The reds could really be sorted into dark red, pink red, orange red, etc. Pick a hue and run with it. For the body of the caterpillar, it's not just green. There's lots of variation in the picture, so I tried to mimic that.
Step 4. More accents with the markers. The top of the caterpillar is outlined in yellow.
Step 5: Show off your handiwork!
First Birthday
We survived birthday week. There were some points this week that I thought it wasn't going to happen. Like when I lost my voice on Thursday, or when Squirt's 12-month shots left her bruised and cranky ON her birthday. Poor thing.
But in the end, I do think we accomplished the goal. Remembering her day of birth with joy, not sadness.
Unfortunately, her birthday will forever be linked with the tornadoes. To this day, whenever anyone asks her birthday and I say, "April 25," they make the connection. Or they say, "I'll never forget the day you came home from the hospital."
Yeah, neither will we.
But I digress. Today was about the JOY of the last year, not the stress of her first week.
About four months ago I decided her birthday party would be Very Hungry Caterpillar. It's her favorite book, has been since she was old enough to pick her bedtime story. Pinterest is FULL of VHC ideas (Link to my board here). Some easier than others, I thought it was a theme I could pull off with little effort. Unfortunately, since I've had so much time to think about it, the simple "cake and ice cream with the family" went a bit overboard. But I don't care because I had fun.
The best part about this theme- it's all about the food. And honestly, what else is there to do at a one-year-old birthday party? Garrick and I had long decided we would only invite family to the birthday parties until our kids are old enough to have buddies that they want to invite. That being said, we weren't going to do any crafts or games for the adults. (Although this morning I thought it would be fun to make everyone list all the foods from the book from memory. Alicia, my brother's girlfriend, correctly named twelve! And Andrew is quite the artist, so I gave him a VHC coloring page, which he and Alicia colored for her memory book.)
We had Squirt's one-year pictures done this morning, so I'll have actual professional photos of her dress, the VHC quilt I made, and some of the party stuff soon. I'll definitely post it!
Some of the things not in the photos:
1. The "game" I came up with was pretty fun. I wish I'd thought of it sooner so I could have had a good prize! (The "prize" was the empty helium canister.)
2. I bought a miniature version of the book to use as a guest book. Everyone loved it.
3. We did pre-scooped ice cream in cupcake liners per Pinterest. That and the cupcakes made serving cake and ice cream a cinch. Which was good since I was upstairs hosing someone off.
4. We bought a helium canister because we thought it would be cheaper than buying individual latex balloons at $1.29 +tax each. I don't think it ended up being a savings. I'll know better next time.
Here's a rundown of my execution of all the Pinterest ideas I found. Since none were original ideas, I'll just post the pictures. It's up to you to find the original pin if you want to copy it! If anyone is doing a VHC party in the near future, let me know and you can borrow all of my stuff!
But in the end, I do think we accomplished the goal. Remembering her day of birth with joy, not sadness.
Unfortunately, her birthday will forever be linked with the tornadoes. To this day, whenever anyone asks her birthday and I say, "April 25," they make the connection. Or they say, "I'll never forget the day you came home from the hospital."
Yeah, neither will we.
But I digress. Today was about the JOY of the last year, not the stress of her first week.
About four months ago I decided her birthday party would be Very Hungry Caterpillar. It's her favorite book, has been since she was old enough to pick her bedtime story. Pinterest is FULL of VHC ideas (Link to my board here). Some easier than others, I thought it was a theme I could pull off with little effort. Unfortunately, since I've had so much time to think about it, the simple "cake and ice cream with the family" went a bit overboard. But I don't care because I had fun.
The best part about this theme- it's all about the food. And honestly, what else is there to do at a one-year-old birthday party? Garrick and I had long decided we would only invite family to the birthday parties until our kids are old enough to have buddies that they want to invite. That being said, we weren't going to do any crafts or games for the adults. (Although this morning I thought it would be fun to make everyone list all the foods from the book from memory. Alicia, my brother's girlfriend, correctly named twelve! And Andrew is quite the artist, so I gave him a VHC coloring page, which he and Alicia colored for her memory book.)
We had Squirt's one-year pictures done this morning, so I'll have actual professional photos of her dress, the VHC quilt I made, and some of the party stuff soon. I'll definitely post it!
Some of the things not in the photos:
1. The "game" I came up with was pretty fun. I wish I'd thought of it sooner so I could have had a good prize! (The "prize" was the empty helium canister.)
2. I bought a miniature version of the book to use as a guest book. Everyone loved it.
3. We did pre-scooped ice cream in cupcake liners per Pinterest. That and the cupcakes made serving cake and ice cream a cinch. Which was good since I was upstairs hosing someone off.
4. We bought a helium canister because we thought it would be cheaper than buying individual latex balloons at $1.29 +tax each. I don't think it ended up being a savings. I'll know better next time.
Here's a rundown of my execution of all the Pinterest ideas I found. Since none were original ideas, I'll just post the pictures. It's up to you to find the original pin if you want to copy it! If anyone is doing a VHC party in the near future, let me know and you can borrow all of my stuff!
 |
| Flowers, using orange slices to brighten the look. |
 |
| Watermelon (cut into butterfly shapes using cookies cutter. Wilson bug set found at Joann's) and Strawberries. |
 |
| Apples and Oranges |
 |
| Lollipops from Party City. Great party favor for big "kids." |
 |
| Salami (butterflies) and Swiss Cheese (caterpillars) cut with the cookies cutters. FYI- cutting salami with a cookie cutter is not as easy as you might think. Cheese was easier than you might think. The butterfly crackers come in the Pepperidge Farm Entertaining Pack. |
 |
| Chocolate cupcakes (cake mix+greek yogurt+water) for the grown-ups and white cake for the babe. This was actually my husband's idea. Even though I had seen it on Pinterest, he had not and came up with the suggestion all by himself! Impressive! |
 |
| The spread |
 |
| Gorgeous dress made by Squirt's Nanny. If you must have one, contact her via Etsy! She's very good at custom orders. |
 |
| Frame off an artist's canvas. We got pictures with Squirt and everyone at the party. |
 |
| Boons! |
 |
| Memo board found at Joann's and button art by me. Ok, so that was original. I'm going to do a post on how I did that sometime soon. |
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Meal Planning
In our house, we take the "divide and conquer" approach to mundane household tasks. We've had to reexamine our duties a few times, especially with the arrival of Squirt, but it seems to be a pretty even divide. So I'm not complaining that I'm in charge of meal budgeting, planning, and execution, but it is a tedious exercise. And it doesn't seem to matter how many times I do it, they seem to want dinner every night!
This week we seriously went to Chick-fil-A (the ol' standby) not because we didn't have food in the house or because I didn't feel like cooking, but because I was simply too tired to decide WHAT to make. That's the worst part for me. The deciding.
So on our way to CFA we were playfully ribbing my husband (yes, the one I promised not to talk about in my blog) about how he would have a Sheldon Cooper-style meal plan if he could. (If you're not a fan of The Big Bang Theory, shame on you! Just kidding. The main character is either OCD or on the spectrum or both and always has the same food each week. Thai food on Monday, Cheesecake Factory on Tuesday, Pizza on Thursday, etc.) My hubby and Sheldon have a lot in common, and although he doesn't like to eat out much, he very much liked the idea of a routine.
Well, I'm more OCD than I care to admit as well, so when we got home we decided to nail down a schedule. After much discussion, here's what we decided to start with:
Monday- Italian
Tuesday- Comfort food
Wednesday- Freezer meal
Thursday- Mexican
Friday- Leftovers
Saturday- Pizza
Sunday- Husband's choice
There is some logic to the schedule. He eats mostly leftovers for lunch during the week, so Monday-Wednesday are theoretically meals that would make good leftovers. We try to have date night on Friday nights, so we often wouldn't need a meal that night anyway. On Sunday, he agreed to make dinner if we don't go out with our usual Sunday night crowd.
To further help me, the oh-so-indecisive one, I've made a Pinterest board for each night. Theoretically, all I have to do is scan that day's board for something that looks good and I have the ingredients to make, and meal planning will be MUCH simpler!
Let the playful ribbing commence....
This week we seriously went to Chick-fil-A (the ol' standby) not because we didn't have food in the house or because I didn't feel like cooking, but because I was simply too tired to decide WHAT to make. That's the worst part for me. The deciding.
So on our way to CFA we were playfully ribbing my husband (yes, the one I promised not to talk about in my blog) about how he would have a Sheldon Cooper-style meal plan if he could. (If you're not a fan of The Big Bang Theory, shame on you! Just kidding. The main character is either OCD or on the spectrum or both and always has the same food each week. Thai food on Monday, Cheesecake Factory on Tuesday, Pizza on Thursday, etc.) My hubby and Sheldon have a lot in common, and although he doesn't like to eat out much, he very much liked the idea of a routine.
Well, I'm more OCD than I care to admit as well, so when we got home we decided to nail down a schedule. After much discussion, here's what we decided to start with:
Monday- Italian
Tuesday- Comfort food
Wednesday- Freezer meal
Thursday- Mexican
Friday- Leftovers
Saturday- Pizza
Sunday- Husband's choice
There is some logic to the schedule. He eats mostly leftovers for lunch during the week, so Monday-Wednesday are theoretically meals that would make good leftovers. We try to have date night on Friday nights, so we often wouldn't need a meal that night anyway. On Sunday, he agreed to make dinner if we don't go out with our usual Sunday night crowd.
To further help me, the oh-so-indecisive one, I've made a Pinterest board for each night. Theoretically, all I have to do is scan that day's board for something that looks good and I have the ingredients to make, and meal planning will be MUCH simpler!
Let the playful ribbing commence....
Friday, March 9, 2012
My day is Pi Day!
We celebrated Pi Day today. I am fully aware that the official Pi Day is March 14 (3.14, in case you don't speak nerd), but we're on Spring Break next week, so we always celebrate the Friday before.
We've been planning for a few weeks now and I'm relieved to say that everything went very smoothly! With over 130 sixth graders, this is the largest group I've ever done this with! Plus it was the day before a break and a full moon, so pandemonium was almost a given. But the kids were soooo excited to have a whole day of fun activities that they were really enthusiastic and well-behaved. We integrated math, art, language, writing, and reading so everyone would have something that appealed to them. Oh, and food. Who doesn't like food?
The rest of this post is going to be logistics for fellow teachers who are looking for their own Pi Day activities, so I won't be hurt if you skip the rest. Most of the stuff we did I found online and pinned to my Pinterest page here.
I made "Passport to Pi Day" booklets for all the kids so they wouldn't ask me "What's next???" eighty-seven million times today. We did five 45-minute rotations, with breaks for P.E., lunch, and one class had their regularly scheduled art time. I left five minutes between each rotation for travel time and catch-up if we needed it. It was just the right amount of time.
These are in no particular order.
Rotation 1 - Math lesson on the area of circles
In my class we used pizza boxes and menus from Famous Joe's, a locally owned pizza place that was kind enough to donate the materials for us. After discussing the derivation of the formula, which we'd done in class previously (If you take the radius of a circle to form the length and width of a square and find the area, that area will fit into that circle 3.14 times), we found the area of their 12" and 16" pizzas, then they got to pick their three favorite pizzas from the menu and calculate the "cost per bite" (square inch) and write a summary of which they would order and why. The cheapest per bite, the large cheese pizza, was $0.07 per bite and the most expensive, the Avery (a yummy concoction with grilled chicken, roma tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and a balsamic glaze) was $0.15 per bite- over twice as much! I made a data record sheet to help them keep everything organized.
Rotation 3- Pi Poetry
The awesome Mrs. Benefield came up with several different poetry prompts to inspire pi-related prose. She had rhyming dictionaries for each group and examples of limericks (St. Patrick's Day tie-in there) to get them started. As they shared them with each other, they got to enjoy their pie!
Rotation 5 - Pi jewelry
Mrs. Armstrong is really crafty, so she did the Pi jewelry. Using colored paper clips from Staples, each digit was assigned a unique color. Then they were given the first 20 digits of pi to put into order on a paperclip chain. Lots of schools do bead or paper chains to see how long they can make it in a day, but I like this because they all get a visual representation of pi to take home with them.
If you have time, you can do a musical clapping game to help them memorize the digits. The kids can sit or stand in a circle and clap-snap at 60 bpm:
3.
3 point.
3 point 1.
3 point 1, 4.
3 point 1, 4, 1.
And so on. They can all do it together, or make it a contest and if you mess up, you're out. Keep going until you have a winner.
Bonus!
Since we had some down time with some classes at P.E. or Art and others weren't, I printed out several geometric coloring sheets involving circles. Everyone got to pick one, color it with colored pencils, then cut it out and glue it to colored paper to make a "Happy Pi Day" card to give to a math geek in their life next Wednesday, the real Pi Day!
We've been planning for a few weeks now and I'm relieved to say that everything went very smoothly! With over 130 sixth graders, this is the largest group I've ever done this with! Plus it was the day before a break and a full moon, so pandemonium was almost a given. But the kids were soooo excited to have a whole day of fun activities that they were really enthusiastic and well-behaved. We integrated math, art, language, writing, and reading so everyone would have something that appealed to them. Oh, and food. Who doesn't like food?
The rest of this post is going to be logistics for fellow teachers who are looking for their own Pi Day activities, so I won't be hurt if you skip the rest. Most of the stuff we did I found online and pinned to my Pinterest page here.
 |
| Me reading "Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi" to a class. Notice my awesome pi hoodie (ThinkGeek) and Pi bracelet (etsy)! |
These are in no particular order.
Rotation 1 - Math lesson on the area of circles
In my class we used pizza boxes and menus from Famous Joe's, a locally owned pizza place that was kind enough to donate the materials for us. After discussing the derivation of the formula, which we'd done in class previously (If you take the radius of a circle to form the length and width of a square and find the area, that area will fit into that circle 3.14 times), we found the area of their 12" and 16" pizzas, then they got to pick their three favorite pizzas from the menu and calculate the "cost per bite" (square inch) and write a summary of which they would order and why. The cheapest per bite, the large cheese pizza, was $0.07 per bite and the most expensive, the Avery (a yummy concoction with grilled chicken, roma tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and a balsamic glaze) was $0.15 per bite- over twice as much! I made a data record sheet to help them keep everything organized.
Rotation 2 - T-shirt decorating
Everyone brought in a plain, colored t-shirt to decorate with bleach pens instead of boring fabric markers on white shirts like we used to do. I got the idea from several Pinterest posts, such as this one. We learned several things for next year:
1. Don't put the bleach gel on too heavily or it's too hard to rinse off.
2. Use the Science Lab because it has larger sinks to rinse the shirts!
3. 100% cotton shirts in dark colors (with the exception of red) work the best.
4. Leave plenty of space between letters because they do bleed into each other.
I thought the shirts turned out really cute! Mrs. Betts and all the wonderful parent volunteers were real troopers putting up with the bleach stench and cold water all day!
The awesome Mrs. Benefield came up with several different poetry prompts to inspire pi-related prose. She had rhyming dictionaries for each group and examples of limericks (St. Patrick's Day tie-in there) to get them started. As they shared them with each other, they got to enjoy their pie!
 |
| "When I first learned about pi, I thought I was going to die. There were so many digits, I started to fidget, and looked up in the sky." |
Rotation 4- Math lesson on the circumference of circles
Mr. Thaxton read "Sir Cumference and the First Round Table" to his class, then they got to make fortune tellers (remember those?!?) that gave them lots of practice with circumference in a really fun way. This was the first year we did those as a fellow teacher found the activity here.
Mrs. Armstrong is really crafty, so she did the Pi jewelry. Using colored paper clips from Staples, each digit was assigned a unique color. Then they were given the first 20 digits of pi to put into order on a paperclip chain. Lots of schools do bead or paper chains to see how long they can make it in a day, but I like this because they all get a visual representation of pi to take home with them.
If you have time, you can do a musical clapping game to help them memorize the digits. The kids can sit or stand in a circle and clap-snap at 60 bpm:
3.
3 point.
3 point 1.
3 point 1, 4.
3 point 1, 4, 1.
And so on. They can all do it together, or make it a contest and if you mess up, you're out. Keep going until you have a winner.
Bonus!
Since we had some down time with some classes at P.E. or Art and others weren't, I printed out several geometric coloring sheets involving circles. Everyone got to pick one, color it with colored pencils, then cut it out and glue it to colored paper to make a "Happy Pi Day" card to give to a math geek in their life next Wednesday, the real Pi Day!
All in all, a really fun day. I'm so glad I work with a team that likes to do crazy stuff to keep the kids engaged, and that we have such wonderful parents that send in supplies and volunteer their time so we could all have a great time!
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