Celebrate Pi Day by Writing in Pi-Lish

I love Pi Day. In fact, it’s one of my favorites holidays. And I love finding more and more activities to incorporate into our Pi Day festivities.

When I first heard about Pi-Lish I got so excited and knew I had to find a way to incorporate it into our Pi Day celebrations.

Looking for Pi Day activities for younger kids? Check out these Pi Day activities for preschoolers!

What is Pi-lish?

What is Pi-Lish and Why Should We Learn About It?

Pi-lish is a made up language based on the number Pi.

Every word in succession has to match the numbers of Pi.

So, the first one is 3 letters long, second word is 1 letter, third word is 4 letters, and so on.

Pi-lish isn’t really mathematical or educational but it is a fun way to talk about and get kids engaged in learning about the number pi.

I believe in exposing kids to many ideas and topics in fun ways to try to grab their interest in different ways. Pi itself is an interesting number but it’s probably not enough to grip many kids.

However, doing fun Pi Day activities and exposing them to the concept of pi in multiple ways just might get them more excited about pi.

Or, it might just make pi a little less scary when they are older and encounter it in a math setting.

This writing activity is great for getting your kids to write in a new and creative way and can serve as exposure to Pi!

Getting Ready to Write in Pi-Lish

Pi-lish reminds me of Haiku’s in the sense that you’re limited in the words available because of limitations in the poem. Haiku’s have a specific number of syllables per line and in a specific order.

Pi-lish is limited based on the number of letters in a word.

So I thought it would make the most sense to have kids brainstorm a list of words by length of the word. I also found it helpful to do some research online to find more words.

Some of this research even led to new theme and subject ideas.

I found it a lot less frustrating to attempt to write in Pi-Lish when I had my own little cheat sheet at hand.

There is a page in the printable set designed for brainstorming these words!

Write a Sentence in Pi-Lish

Now that you’re all prepared with a list of words it’s time to try to make the longest Pi-Lish sentence ever.

This is surprisingly difficult but a really interesting challenge to undertake.

Using your word list try to put together sequences of words that follow English rules and see how long you can make a sentence in Pi-lish.

There is a page in the printable set laid out just for this. The words are in order of Pi so you just have to fill them in!

Writing a Poem for Pi Day

Now it’s time to write a poem in pi-lish!

I found this a lot easier than writing a sentence if only because you can break the rules of English in poetry.

You can skip some writing conventions, write run-ons, etc.

Poetry gives you a lot more options.

Again, I suggest using the writing list you brainstormed earlier.

Try to choose a topic or a subject and play with how you can put words together to make a cohesive thought in poetry form.