Beginning Sounds Maze: Pictures That Start Like Lion

A sandy market square seen from above is the setting of this phonics maze. A lion starts at the green circle and a basket waits at the far end. Along the paths sit round cards, each with a picture and no words: fruit, animals, tools and toys. The lion itself is the clue, because the right cards begin the way the word lion begins.

The child says the name of each picture aloud and steps only on the pictures that start with the same sound as lion, such as leaf, lemon or llama. The wrong cards start with other sounds, and a few of them have an l later in the word, like koala, so a child who listens only for any l will go wrong. Hearing the first sound of a spoken word is a kindergarten phonological awareness skill that comes before reading, and this page practises it with pictures only, so even children who do not read yet can do it.

The page prints as a PDF, works as a screen version where the child drags the lion over the cards and presses Check (a wrong card is circled in red), and comes with an answer key showing the lion's road in colour. In the same family, the alphabet mazes practise letter order, and the first maze with the puppy is a gentle start for pencil control. These are picture mazes with a story; square-grid mazes, dot-to-dot and word sorting have their own pages.