Thursday, April 26, 2012

// // 15 comments

Life-Size Maze

Does your preschooler like mazes? It's time to find out! Try this life-size maze with your kiddos! You can use books, toys, or more!



Turn your play room into a maze!  Even better, turn your whole house into a maze!  Mazes do wonderful things for your child's development, and actually building a maze pays off in even more ways!


Here are a few benefits from playing with mazes:
  • Mazes can enhance your child's spacial awareness and perception.
  • Solving mazes can improve your child's confidence and patience.
  • Focusing on mazes can sharpen your child's memory.
  • Concentrating on mazes can strengthen your child's problem-solving skills.
  • While paper mazes may increase your child's eye-hand and small muscle coordination, this life-size maze uses their large-muscles too!
  • Actually helping build the maze demands fun, new workouts from their quickly growing cognitive skills!



Making a Life-Size Maze
The supplies are simple--you can use books, jump-ropes, yarn, blankets, or anything else to create maze-like barriers.  You can identify the safe path in your mind or actually build it first.  Then add a few distracting paths.  Let your children help!  Even though they helped build this, my kids loved going through it.  I put some gold "pirate" coins at the end as a treasure and they were thrilled to "go on a hunt" through the maze.  After they knew the route, my preschoolers enjoyed taking my younger children though the maze so they could get their gold too, and then retracing their exact steps.  "Now, how did I get here?" and "Let's see if we can get out of this," were phrases I heard several times! 

Next time, I want to find a way to make walls they can't see over.  It will add a whole new dimension to the maze! 

Happy Educating,
Carla


Have you seen HEEP? It is a preschool homeschool curriculum! Learn more here!



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15 comments:

Kristina said...

Oh my goodness! How fun?!?! Great rainy day or too hot to play outside summer day activity! My son loves mazes.

Unknown said...

That is such a great idea! Especially for those of us who have too many books!

Shiloh said...

What a super fun idea! Perfect for a rainy day!

Carla at Preschool Powol Packets said...

Kristina, It would be a fabulous rainy day activity!

Bethany, I know, right?! We didn't even make a dent in our book stash, and the kids were like, "Hey! I haven't seen this book in forever!"

Thanks, Shiloh! Sometimes I wonder if rainy days are even more fun than normal!

Marla said...

My girls would love this activity! Thank you for sharing!

Lauren said...

So fun! My daughter will love this! Thanks for sharing at A Pinteresting Party!

Hani said...

This is so amazing.. I am sharing it on pinterest and facebook.. :) Thanks for linking up at friday fun party

Carla at Preschool Powol Packets said...

Thanks, Marla!

Thanks, Tutus and Tea Parties! And thanks for hosting A Pinteresting Party!

Hani, Thanks so much for sharing it and for hosting Friday Fun Party!

Unknown said...

My daughter loves to do her maze workbook. This is so much better! I can't wait to see if she can build her own maze. Thanks for sharing!

Deb Chitwood said...

I love this! What a great idea for fun and learning! I can see how it would renew interest in some books, too. I featured your post at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/LivingMontessoriNow

Trisha @ Inspiration Laboratories said...

I love this idea! I know my son will, too. :)

Lorissa Kearbey said...

Wonderful idea! Thanks for sharing...my little guy will love this. Found you through the It's Playtime Link up.

Lauren said...

I just wanted to pop back in and let you know you are one of the featured links this week! http://tutusandteaparties.blogspot.com/2012/05/pinteresting-party-with-guest-host-from.html

Thank you for linking up!

Michelle @ Delicate Construction said...

Thanks so much for linking this up last week!! I featured you this week!
Michelle
http://www.delicateconstruction.com/

Carla at Preschool Powol Packets said...

Janine, Doing mazes on such a different scale was amazing! I hope you guys enjoy it!

Thanks, Deb! Yeah, it's been fun to look at some of the books that were at the bottom of the bucket, lol!

Trisha, I'd love to hear how it goes!

Lorissa, I'm so glad you came by!

Woo hoo!! Thanks, Tutus! I love the Pinteresting Party!!

Yay, Michelle!! Thank you! I love Delicate Construction!!