…at the time of writing, it’s nearly December so we can start opening the Christmathy doors on Mathematical Advent Calendars.

Also checked and updated is the Christmas Mathematics Resources page.

A new month is always a good time to remind readers of Wayne Chadburn’s monthly calendars. He writes these calendars to provide regular, varied practice – a little bit of maths each day. Three versions of each monthly calendar are available, Higher, Foundation Plus, and Foundation; answers are provided.

Staying with calendars we could return to MacTutor for A Brief History of Time and Calendars. Thinking about the history of the calendar, here’s a good calendar for some probability questions, is anything ever certain?!

We could work out the day on which any date falls, this reminds me of a legacy MEI Decision Maths paper where students were provided with an algorithm to compute the date of Easter Sunday in the Gregorian calendar system; my students of the time came to find me after the exam to tell me about the algorithm question!

and here is the mark scheme in case anyone wishes to work through this.

Many investigations can use calendars, here’s an example from Nrich – Calendar Capers.

Perhaps a little puzzle from Mathisfun!