3.14

3.14 – Pi Day Activities by TeamMates Mentoring

March 14, better known as Pi Day. Pi is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. This is a day dedicated to making math fun! Here are some activities and resources for you and your mentee during the week of Pi Day! Tell us about the activites you try.

Explain Pi

Pi can be a difficult concept to explain for people of all ages. Here is an activity you can do to visualize what 3.14 means. Find a cylindrical object, wrap a string around the outside of the cylinder and cut the strong so it is exactly the cylinder’s circumference. Take the circumference string and stretch it across the diameter of the cylinder. How many diameters would you be able to cut from the string? The answer should be three and a little piece left over, or 3.14. (Activity from Disney Family Fun, check out the site)

Paper Chain

Create a Pi Chain with loops of construction paper – use a different color for each of the ten digits. Try to make the chain 100 links long!

Read about Pi

Research what Pi is, who discovered it, the mathematics behing it. You can use the internet or books in the school library. If you have a younger mentee, check out the book “Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi: A Math Adventure” by Cindy Neuschwander.

Other books about Pi:

• The Joy of Pi by David Blatner
• Piece of Pi: Wit-Sharpening, Brain-Bruising, Number-Crunching Activities with Pi by Naila Bokhari
• Pi: A Biography of the World’s Most Mysterious Number by Posamentier and Lehmann
• A History of Pi by Petr Beckmann
• Not A Wake: A dream embodying (pi)’s digits fully for 10,000 decimals by Michael Keith
• for more books check here

Pi Music

• Pi on the Violin 
• Pi Day Carols Handout – remixed versions of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, O Christmas Tree, Silver Bells and Jingle Bells
• Piano love ballad called “Simply Pi”
• Pi Day Rap - “Lose Yourself (in the digits)”

Other Links and Resources:

• Pi Day on Facebook  (It has 7,599 fans!!)
• www.teachpi.org
• Disney Family Fun
• www.piday.org

Pi in Dominos

VISTA: National Volunteer Week

Journal Hendricks 24

Happy National Volunteer Week!!

To let our volunteers know that they are appreciated, each volunteer was sent an email thanking them for their service to the community and to Best Friends. There was also an ad in the Dickinson Chamber of Commerce e-newsletter thanking our volunteers.

Data collection has officially started! This week I worked on prepping the forms so that they would be ready to send out to the schools, mentors, parents, and mentees by Monday the 23^rd of April. Data is collected on our mentors and mentees who are currently matched and have been matched since the end of last year. For mentors, they are given an evaluation form with which to rate Best Friends and also tell us what their plans are for next year and if they are planning to continue as a mentor. Our Junior Friends in the Literacy program given surveys on how they feel around their Senior Friend, what they do, etc. Teachers and parents are also given evaluations of our program; teachers also include an evaluation of their students and whether or not they have improved in areas such as academics, behavior, attitude, and social skills. We try to collect all the data before the schools get out for the summer, as it will be next to impossible to track anyone down after that. The data is used to show the progression of our Junior Friends in our program. When they are referred to Best Friends, the referral source is asked to rank the students in the same four areas as listed above. The data shows us whether these students with mentors have improved, not improved or stayed the same during the year. If a student has been in the program for more than one year, we are able to track their improvement (or lack of) as seen by teachers and also by their grades in school.

Laura Hann and I met with RASP (Regional After School Program) to discuss the tutoring program that they have, and if we can collaborate with them. Next year, we are looking into doing a tutoring block at one of the elementary schools with our DSU Literacy Class. If this can be done, we will be able to minimize the amount of time that our program coordinator spends on Literacy matches, mostly trying to make all the schedules work. With our staff shortages, we are trying to all save as much time as we can, as well as make the most of our time here. We are still actively looking for a Match Support Specialist, an intern or another AmeriCorps*VISTA. For the time being we are all splitting the Match Support Specialist duties between us. I have been working on updating and revising the information that we have on our Junior and Senior Friends to make sure it is all in order and in a comprehensive fashion.

AmeriCorps Journal Hendricks 23

 

Wednesday morning I attended the Glow Ball Golf Scramble meeting at the Heart River Golf Course. At this meeting we decided on which contests we will be hosting on the golf course, what we will be serving for a meal, what prizes we would get for individuals and teams, and made the time changes official. We are still looking for hole sponsors and companies willing to donate for the registration bags. After the golf scramble meeting, I wrote up an official letter asking for hole sponsors so that our committee member would have an official document to give to companies and individuals. We are hoping to get all of our hole sponsors soon. We are still looking for a presenting sponsor for this year’s scramble, but have the rest of our big sponsors set.

I started working on data collection this week. In previous weeks I had spent the time organizing and learning what parts of data collection I was to do. Before I started to work on data collection I needed to update and organize our spreadsheets. Not every Junior Friend we currently have will have data collected on them.

Before I could do data collection though, I spent some time learning the Match Support Specialist job: recording changes in matches, etc. Our program coordinator had changes made to matches, so I made the changes to my files and updated our spreadsheets accordingly. Now that our Match Support Specialist has left, I will be taking some of her old responsibilities and working more closely with the program coordinators.

Our second, and final, day of Easter Bunny pictures was held on Saturday the 7^th. Kris, the executive director, was able to set up the pictures and the spring bake sale for me. About one hundred and twenty-five  pictures were taken, which is a slight increase from the previous weekend. For the bake sale, over four hundred dollars was raised! The first day, we made over $300 and thought it was a great day! We have decided that having a bake sale where all the baked goods are sold by donations, and not a set price, has worked the best for us. We have made more in our last three bake sales then we ever thought we would. It is also easier for us as we have volunteers who are baking for us, and many are not able to drop off their baked goods until the day of the bake sale. It would be a hassle for us to price baked goods at that time so have made the decision to only have donation based bake sales.