This kid-size block maze activity is brought to us by guest blogger Julie Kieras at HappyStrongHome.
Nothing’s worse than “I’m bored!” in the summer than… a rainy day and kids saying, “I’m bored!”
For those blah days in the house, I keep the boys busy playing at activity stations (coloring, modeling clay, stickers, etc). But one rainy Saturday, when I had some big projects planned, I knew I’d need something more involved to keep the boys engaged for a longer time.
Creating a maze out of their cardboard building blocks just came to me, and I immediately got excited about laying out the plan!
One set of 40 cardboard blocks can make a maze configuration to fill a 5×8 foot rug. For young kids like my boys, this was just fine, but for the five-plus crowd, two brick sets might be better for a more detailed maze.
I thought the boys should “win” something at the end, so I filled a baby pool with play balls!
Then, to add a little interest, I set up our Happy Giddy tunnel at the start of the block maze.
When the boys saw their block maze set up the next morning, they were giddy with excitement! Surprisingly, they took great care (even my nearly three year old!) to avoid knocking down the walls as they crawled through the maze.
And even though the maze was short and simple (especially for my five year old), they just had fun going back and forth.
They brought out their toy cars and drove them through. Then they rolled some of the balls through. And of course… if you give kids some blocks… they started to construct their own version of the maze!
I’m learning as I grow further into parenting, that the best play experiences are ones kids design themselves. Modeling one option of what they could do with their cardboard blocks (making a maze) was just a starting point. The boys took it from there, building bridges, forts, towers, “garages” for the balls, and anything else their imagination inspired!
Later that same afternoon, I walked into the living room to find my oldest son constructing a “reading house” for himself, complete with a window!
See where a maze can lead? I can see we’ll be doing a lot of building this summer!
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