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Written by Gabrielle Tramby In this activity you’ll do maths like a computer. It’s a bit tricky, so younger readers may want to read the ‘What’s Happening?’ section first.

Grab some tokens and let’s go! Here’s a simple game to play with a friend.

See if you can work out this puzzle. You might like to use an advent calendar to solve it, or maybe you could work it out in your head first!

Here’s an easy game to try with a friend. All you need is a pen and paper.

This activity sounds super easy from the title, but there’s more to it than you might expect!

There are some surprising patterns that can be revealed in Australian coins if you take a closer look.

How likely is it that at least two people out of 30 will share a birthday?

1. Pi (or π) is a number that helps describe circles. It links the width of a circle with its perimeter, or the radius of a circle with its area, or the width of a ball and its volume. It’s the same number no matter how big your circle is – about 3.14159265.

Three and five. Five and seven. Eleven and thirteen. Prime numbers often appear as twins, only two apart. For hundreds of years, mathematicians have wondered – is there a biggest pair of twin primes, or does the list of twins keep going forever?

How did people multiply before calculators were invented? You could try doing it in your head, but you could also use a mechanical calculator, such as this set of Napier’s bones.