How to Make DIY Cardboard Maze
Mazes are a big hit with therapist, and kids love them too! Mazes are not only fun and interesting, they provide your child to address a huge set of skills. So why not DIY a Cardboard Maze.
Recycle is a great trend in our house. instead of investing in new toys and products, we like to make our own recycles toys and products. Recycled toys may not last years, but they last enough till the child outgrows them. The best part is they get to choose and create the toys they like and its extremely cost-effective.
Mazes and Labyrinths have been around for the longest time and were also use by ancient people. But with all the play it comes a lot of benefits as well.
1.Visual Skills – It helps children to develop their visual perceptual-motor skills. Allows children to detect, differentiate, select, draw conclusions and understand information when we are given certain maps. It makes them look at the given challenges and analyse everything with their visual skills.
2. Builds confidence – Making their own game and others playing a game they made definitely imbibes a lot of confidence. Also when you reach the end of the maze there is a feeling of accomplishment. It also encourages problem-solving skills.
3. Motor skills – They use their hands to get through a maze or pencil to get through the maze. This develops their grips and fine motor skills.
4. Innovation – Developing own maze encourages the confidence to innovation. Every innovation starts with trying and failure. From a young age, they understand these concepts and strive towards innovation
5. Think more – Children need to think more. First, they have to think of all the possibilities to get to the end faster. Even when they create a maze, they need a plan. A map for the start points, passageways, hindrances and exits. This helps them to think more to achieve a good map or maze.
6. Patience – Develops patience in children. Allows them to understand that you cannot reach the end without passing all the hurdles. Patience and perseverance is the only way one can achieve success.
Children can create their own games and when other people play the games they created, they can develop some critical analysis skills. DIY cardboard maze will be a great activity for your children to build confidence to innovate. Innovation is not about ideas but putting those ideas into action.
A step by step guide to making your own maze at home.
What you need:
- Cardboard/Shoe box
- Popsicle sticks
- Glue
- Paint (if you would like to make it colourful)
- Marble
- Scissors
#Step 1.
Get a flat cardboard or you can also use a shoebox.
#Step 2.
We have spray painted it, you can use your imagination to paint it or leave it just as is.
#Step 3.
Now your child should first create a map on a rough paper and think of all the possible entry and exits.
#Step 4.
Once they have the map ready, they can stick the popsicle sticks with glue and make the maze
#Step 5
We have added our version of the maze with collecting coins, Temple Run syndrome.
#Step 6
Make a hole with a puncher for exits.
DIY Cardboard Maze is an easy activity for kids to do themselves. With limited supplies, they can make a game of their own!
Inculcating values of recycling and reusing from a young age is very important for sustainable living. Today’s world has no dearth for toys and games for each age group. But teaching our children to share and reuse the things we have is effective parenting. Cardboard toys, arts and crafts are just a way we teach our children that even those Amazon boxes can be recycled and made to use.
