Celebrating Pi π Day with Kids
Celebrating Pi π Day with numbers, math symbols, and Chinese!
Facts About Pi Day
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Pi π Day is March 14.
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It is celebrated around the world.
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Pi π in Greek is a mathematics symbol.
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When people work on the simple calculation of a circle they usually use 3.14.
Fun Number Activities
Counting numbers is just like singing the ABC song. It’s a lot of fun. Young kids learn the number concept from daily activities. Learning opportunities are from mealtime to playtime and from around the house to outdoors.
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Counting and addition: Count the Cheerios and thread them together. Count bananas, strawberries, oranges…
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Subtraction: Eat the cheerios and see how many are left. Eat the strawberries and see they are gone.
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Count by 2s, 5s, and 10s: Group the toy cars, blocks, or cheerios. The more fun the kids have the more they want to count!
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Spot the numbers: Read house numbers and license plate numbers on a walk. Read them in English, Spanish, and Chinese. Reading in the target language and community language can double the joy and learning.
Math Symbols in Chinese
Here are the basic math symbols. Listed in English – Pinyin – Chinese Traditional – Chinese Simplified (if different from the traditional form).
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Add/ addition – jiā 加
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Subtract/subtraction – jiǎn 減 ｜减
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Multiply/multiplication – chéng 乘
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Divide/division – chú 除
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Equal – děng yú 等於 ｜等于
Math Operation in Chinese
Here comes the fun to challenge the kids who can count already. Kids can have a lot of saying the following with all the numbers they know.
Listed in English – Pinyin – Chinese Traditional – Chinese Simplified.
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1+1 = 2 reads as yī jiá yī děng yú èr. 一加一等於二。｜一加一等于二。
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2-1 = 1 reads as èr jiǎn yī děng yú yī. 二減一等於一。｜二减一等于一。
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3 x 3 = 9 reads as sān chéng sān děng yǔ jiǔ. 三乘三等於九。｜三乘三等于九。
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10 /5 = 2 reads as shí chū wǔ děng yú èr. 十除五等於二。｜十除五等于二。
Desserts with Math Symbols And Numbers
Add math symbols and numbers to cookies, cakes, or a pie! Invite kids to create the Pi π Day dessert! Use puff pastry, cereals, chocolate chips, sprinkles, …etc.
In celebration of π Day here is a video with multilingual children reading Pi π in Mandarin, Spanish, French, Italian, and Russian. In the video, we feature Miss Panda’s cub, Mèi Mei (Little Sister) to count in Mandarin and the special 9-year -old presenter at Mama Tortuga to share Pi in Spanish. There are more, we also present you Raising World Citizens reading digits of Pi π in French as a duet. Here is the finale that we want to show you the adorable and playful 5-year-old and 7-year-old at Trilingual Children reading π in Italian and Russian.
Numbers and languages work beautifully together. Now it’s your turn to try the numbers in two languages (or more) with your kids and share your videos on Instagram and tag Miss_Panda_Chinese to be featured!
Related Post and Play Book Teaching Resource
What you need to know about Pi Day and meeting young multilingual children reading Pi in many languages
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