We often do roads made of tape and racing tracks but this time it was a Maze.
Here is our Floor Maze. We did it with the concept of "roads" and I thought it would be a little over my boys head but he caught on real quick when I mentioned cars and roads.
I initialised the game with an example, the roads are inside the tape this time (we usually use the tape symbolic as a road its self) and then i went around with a car "uh-oh, stop we cant go that way its blocked off" "turn around or reverse and try again" "If we go this way will we make it to the middle "
This seemed to work a treat and he did it so easily.
Mazes are very tricky for little ones and rely on problem solving, which helps develop your critical thinking / logic skills.
Maze games and other puzzle-solving activities encourage a multitude of mental abilities. Maze games can help maintain short-term memory.
The ability to anticipate, to change the mind, and to reverse direction offer practice in faster brain processing and reaction times. This concept, called mental flexibility, may help your child sort through problems & make decisions more quickly or with more appropriate responses, because planning, anticipating, and looking ahead are all activities involved in playing a maze game.Many cognitive processes are benefited by mazes and it has strong links in improving neural circuits in elderly and aiding against dementia (I know that's not at all relevant BUT its interesting and shows how powerful the brain is).
Before long my little monkey had a car-park of cars in the centre of the maze and listening to him play was so cute. In his little 2 year old voice he was mimicking from my example and he has an obsession with "work" at the moment so it was "bye, I'm going to work" "woops, not this way. beep beep beep (reverse on a truck)" "turn here, quick down this way" "STOP, we are here!" It was very amusing & is still on the floor. He usually enjoys ripping them up when he has finished playing that day but this puzzle remains :)
