See more posts at Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life
Poetry Friday round-up is with Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe
“Today is Pi Day,” My husband greeted me Thursday morning.
“Oh, no! I forgot. I always like to do something for Pi Day.”
“I know that. That’s why I’m telling you.”
So once again, flying by the seat of my 31 years of experience, I opened up our class time together with “Guess what today is?”
Some kids knew, but didn’t know why. I wrote on the board, “Pie Day or Pi Day?”
We discussed the meaning of Pi, the irrational number 3.14 and so on, and the relationship between diameter and circumference of a circle.
Then we got to the fun part. Each student chose a piece of colored paper, and we brainstormed ways to make a perfect circle. Then the hunt for possible patterns- the pencil cup, my coffee cup, the lid of a game. Kaia suggested using a paper clip. If I had once known how to draw a circle with a paper clip, I had forgotten.
Place a pencil inside one end of a large paper clip. Hold the pencil point in place on this sheet of paper. Place another pencil inside the other end of the paper clip. Ask your helper to hold your paper still while you draw a circle by moving the second pencil.
I asked the students to use their imagination to create something with the circle and use it as the topic for their Pi-Ku. A Pi-ku takes on the syllable count of Pi, 3.14159….
While we didn’t produce great poetry, we did have a good time playing with circles, wacky drawings, and syllable counts.
I combined this activity with the daily poetry prompt in Laura Shovan’s poetry project. The prompt for Thursday was honey.
Bumblebee
You’re
My honey sweet
Tea
Pouring all you have
Into joy-light for my morning cup.
3.14159
Karson’s elephant Pi-Ku:
Elephant
eats
cabbage and trees.
Karson, 4th grade
Jump! You feel
light.
You hear music,
a
bird. You think nothing lives
here
Tweet, a moon bird singing is soothing.
by Landon, 5th grade
Reflections on the Teche 