Mazes! What is the happiest memory that we first associate with it? It’s surely the one that takes us straight to our childhood where we would have tremendous fun getting lost in the garden in the Hedge Maze or keep colliding into glass frameworks in the maze of the House of Mirrors. Discovering our way out would mean absolute glee compelling us to jump with excitement. It’s certain, mazes are an enjoyable activity to indulge in for both adults and children alike. So, these were the actual large structural mazes that we were referring to.

Mazes are essentially the puzzles that we initially have on paper which we often see children solving from a small age. They are created and made available to children in various patterns, drawings and designs to attract them so that they get hooked onto them. It is interesting to note that practicing mazes not only benefit children but these also aid therapists to address and highlight a variety of abilities amongst children. So, this brings us to the main question. Why are these mazes so important and why should a child solve them? They do love it as a leisure activity but there is immense logic and technicality behind making them solve those mazes. Let’s look at some of those aspects below.

Enhance Cognitive Skills

Mazes improve the cognitive skills of children. They work like brain boosting exercises. While solving them, it makes them think, reason and remember. Simultaneously achieving all of these, sharpens their memory, builds their focus and increases the concentration level of their minds to a great extent.

Fine Tune Motor Skills

Mazes require the children to navigate the right path through the narrow passages without hitting their pencils or markers to the black lines which are the borders of the maze passages. They have to go slow with the strokes and not rush to complete the puzzle. So, it is their motor skills that are working to prevent them from bumping into the black lines. This controlled movement also helps them to produce readable handwriting later.

Strengthen Visual Skills

Before they begin to solve the maze, children do plan out their moves. Whether they realise it or not but they organically scan their eyes over the maze circuit to decide how to go about with the same. That expands their visual power and the ability to scrutinize complex settings and triumphantly come out of them.

Hand Eye Coordination

While concentrating meticulously with their minds and working with their little fingers to locate the track in the mazes without touching the black lines requires children to be very careful and precise. This is only possible when excellent hand and eye coordination is implemented by the child and it definitely gets finer with practice.

Find Effective Solutions

Children devise their own strategies to solve mazes. Whether they find their way from the start point or work backwards from the end point is up to their imagination. While at it, mazes are constructively helping them to be problem solvers since they are learning to deal with tricky situations.

Virtue of Patience

We have to agree that mazes are a tad complicated and children do take their time to solve them. While doing so, it teaches them the value of persistence that they got to stick around and not give up and that patience will yield good results and their genuine hard work put into something will never be futile.

Build Confidence

A child solving an easier maze or a difficult one, whatever the level may be, just the very fact that they were able to solve it gives them a sense of pride and accomplishment and it lifts their spirits to do more and better the next time.

Parents and teachers, we urge you and recommend you to consider investing or looking through “Highlights International”. They have an entire section dedicated to Maze Books. Based on interesting themes, these puzzle books range from; Farm Mazes, to Halloween Puzzles, and even Travel themed. They are a veteran family media brand that cater to the needs of early childhood. For 70 years they have been publishing content and creating experiences for children that engage, delight and foster joyful learning. Parents all over the world trust the brand. Many schools in the Middle East, Dubai, GCC, and UAE recommend parents to subscribe for Highlights Magazine to promote learning through fun activities. Their wide variety of “Fun with a Purpose” magazines and books are dedicated to helping children become their best selves – creative, curious, caring and confident.

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