How about Fibonacci numbers? Many of their mod $p$ properties can be easily deduced from arithmetic of finite fields. (e.g. $p|F_{p\pm 1}$, where the sign is determined by mod 5 class of $p$). And similarly for Pascal's triangle. They have beautiful patterns mod $p$. ![picture from Wikipedia of Sierpinski's triangle][1] Pell's equation and continued fractions are also beautiful. If the students know holomorphic functions, then Dirichlet's theorem on arithmetic progressions is a cool topic. [1]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/45/Sierpinski_triangle.svg/220px-Sierpinski_triangle.svg.png