16 Ways to Celebrate Square Root Day

4/4/16 – Why it’s called Square Root day and not Square Day, I don’t know. But it is (according to SquareRootDay.net), and I now feel compelled to celebrate. Unfortunately, it’s not long before the kids come home from school and I have no plan. I imagine others are equally taken by surprise, so here’s my service to you:

While the next whole number square root day won’t occur again until 5/5/2025, it would be perfectly acceptable (in my book, at least) to celebrate before then: 4/12/17 (4.12 squared = 17) (or at least, the square root of 17 = 4.12310562562); 4/24/18 (4.24 squared = 18) (square root of 18 = 4.24264068712); square root of 19 = 4.35889894354, so it’s up to you whether you’d truncate and celebrate on 4/3, round up to celebrate on 4/4, or celebrate on 5/5 (since 4/35 = 4/30 + 5 days), or just skip a year because the festivities were just too wild in the other years and you need a day off.

And as my 11yo pointed out, the square root of 2016 is 44, so that makes this a particularly important one to celebrate.
That said, the question now is how. Here are a few suggestions:

1) At 5:25, 6:36, and 7:49, flash the square root sign and say ‘Happy Square Root Day’ (although really you could do that at any time throughout the day)

2) Shop somewhere that uses Square at their checkout counter

3) Eat out at a restaurant in your local ‘Square’ (Baker’s Square, a restaurant in University Square). Order a root vegetable (rutabaga, carrot, radish, potato, sweet potatoes).

4) Alternatively, make a root vegetable dish at home, cut into the shape of a square root). Serve a perfect square number of pieces to each person (or have them solve a square root problem to get that many pieces)

5) For dessert, make something square (lemon squares, carrot cake made in a square pan, brownies, whatever floats your boat, just make it square)

6) Over this festive meal, find all the squares or mathematical patterns about this day (my 9yo pointed out that Monday is the 2nd day of the week, 2 squared is 4 (the month and date), 4 squared is 16 (the year)).

7) Have a Flexagon Party – not really squares, but it’s math and you could decorate each side with a 4, 16, and square root symbol

8) Tell math jokes (http://www.jokes4us.com/miscellaneousjokes/mathjokes/):
Q: Why did the chicken cross the Mobius Strip?
A: To get to the same side.

Q: What happened to the plant in math class?
A: It grew square roots

Q: Why was 6 afraid of 7?
A: Because 7 8 9

9) Drink root beer (but not in a square glass, because then it’s just beer) (got that from here)

10) Origami (square paper. Get it?)

11) Read a Math book at bedtime. Some of our personal favorites (see if you can find them at the local library): One Grain of Rice by Demi, Gene Luen Yang’s Secret Coders, and Strings, Straight Edge and Shadow by Julia Dickens and Corydon Bell

11) Watch a TED talk
Watch Arthur Benjamin calculate three-digit squares and more, or find other talks

12) Play math games online like 2048. Or Minecraft.

13) Talk only with sentences that have each word with a true squr nmbr ltrs (sorry, I had to cheat there to actually finish the sentence – look at the number of letters in each word — 4 4 4 9 4 4 4 4 4 1 4 4 4 4)

14) Play square word games: come up with as many words as you can starting with a, d, i, p, and y (the 1st, 4th, 9th, 16th, 25th letters). Use only words that start with those letters. Come up with as many words as possible using only those letters. Come up with words containing only those letters, with only a square number of letters… Try making cohesive sentences with these words. Make the sentences have only a square number of words.

15) Locate as many squares as you can in your house. Compete to find the most. Bonus points if you find a square number of squares.

16) Watch Spongebob SQUARE Pants! Talk like Spongebob.

How about you? How are you celebrating square root day?

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