Looking at Mayan numbers we saw how their numbers changed at 19, instead of 9, like ours do. This means than instead of place value being in thousands, hundreds, tens and ones; their place value was in eight thousands, four hundreds, twenties and ones.

We also noticed that they had invented their own symbol for 'zero' - something the Romans had failed to do at around the same time in Europe. Mr Philp noticed that a few members of the group struggled with their zeros in place value - either adding them in the wrong places or taking them out where they are still needed - this was be a focus for further work.

Can you write the Mayan number for this year - 2012? Is there anything special about that? No? - If not then why did the Mayan's think the world was going to end this year? Would they have started at the same zero?