Mazes

Occupational therapy

﻿Hi, I'm really looking forward to our lesson today. I hope you are too. Before we get started, this is just a little reminder. We're here to support any approaches you might already be using. And any work, you might have already been set. We know that this lesson is going to be going up to so many different children and families. So if you're not sure about anything or have any questions, then please do contact your usual therapy team. In today's lesson, we're going to look at mazes. I really enjoy doing mazes cause you can make them as simple or as complicated as is just the right level for you and your skills. And it helps us to put together, all the skills that we've learned so far. So what our eyes are seeing and how our brains can then tell our hands, which direction they have to move in. I hope you have fun today. Why should we practise doing mazes? Well, when we do mazes, we have to work really hard at putting together the detail that our eyes see to then tell our hands, how to move, to draw a line through the maze. And this means that we're using all sorts of skills together in one game or one activity. When we get better at doing mazes, we then get better at learning how to write numbers and letters. And eventually we'll have such good control over our pens or pencils. That we can make teeny tiny, small and accurate movements in just the right directions. And that's why when you start with mazes, you always start with the most easiest and simplest ones, and then gradually build up and make it harder. Pause the video now to get the items that you'll need for today. So you'll need mazes of different types. You can ask an adult to help you look online for some websites where you can make your own mazes and then a pen or a pencil. Restart once you're ready. For our first activity we're going to do square mazes. So a square maze just needs you to go up or down, left or right. So you're going to take your pencil and draw a path from one side to either the other or into the middle. Try really hard to not touch any of the walls as you go. If you find it too easy, then find a more challenging maze. And if the one that I have here for you is too tricky, then ask an adult to help you find something that's much easier. So we can see here, there is the maze and we'll start at the top. I'm going to go down, let me try this path. Oh, dead end. Then you simply just go back, okay? Then let's go back to where we started, and we'll try this path. Shall we? Okay, so far so good. Slowly, slowly. Now, if your eyes are following the red dot, you can see if you go down, there are more dead ends. So go up a little bit, go into that path. Now, you know, you want to get down to the bottom, so let's go down, around and take your time. Can you see the exit? It's straight on. Well done. Pause the video to try some square mazes. Next we're going to try and do some circular mazes. So, this means that your drawing is going to be more rounded and not as angled as in the square mazes. So you're going to have to draw around curved or wavy paths. So take your pencil and draw a path from one side to either the other or into the middle, okay? Again, if the one that I've got here for you is too easy or too difficult, then ask an adult to help you find one that's just the right level for you. So, here we have our circular maze. We'll start at the top and we'll go down. You can see straight ahead, that's a dead end. So go down a little bit more. If we go in there, you can see it's going to be a dead end. So simply go back and around. Okay, so we want to try to get to the centre cause there's no other way out with this one. And we're going around and around. Take your time, work super carefully, and you've made it to the middle. Pause the video now to try some circular mazes. When you're getting really, really good at doing mazes, and you want a bigger challenge, you can find some much more complicated mazes where the directions change a lot and you go in all directions and this might even mean that you go diagonally or in zigzags, okay? Let's look at the one on the next slide. Okay, let's have a look at this very complicated maze. Now the trick with this is to really take your time and go very slowly so you can see that's where you enter. And you want to get all the way to the middle. Wow. If you're up for the challenge, pause the video now to try a more complicated maze. Restart once you're finished. I am showing you this just as an example of how tricky mazes can really be. That would be way too tricky for me. There are loads of ways that we can make these activities easier or harder. And that's simply by asking an adult to help you find one that's easier or more challenging. And if it feels, you struggle going over the walls, don't worry about it. It's just practise that's going to make it get much easier for you. Okay, remember, do the best for you. Practise, practise, practise, have loads of fun. And if you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share the pictures of your mazes on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging at @OakNational and #learnwithOak. Bye, see you next time.

Mazes

Mazes

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

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