River Maze: Sail the Boat to the Teddy Bear

In this maze the roads are water. A blue stream winds across a green garden, and a toy boat floats at the green start circle where the stream begins. At the far end a teddy bear sits on a small wooden dock, waiting for the boat. The stream splits into side arms that look just as inviting as the main water, but each one ends against the bank. Along the banks you can spot a frog, a dragonfly, a duck, a swan, a turtle and a leafy tree.

The stream is drawn with long, smooth curves rather than sharp corners, so the line a child draws is a sweeping curve. That makes the page good practice for the curved strokes that come before writing letters such as c, o and s, while the side arms keep the thinking side of a maze alive. A child steers the boat with a finger first, saying where the water goes, and then draws a line that stays in the water from the boat to the dock.

The page prints as a PDF, works as a screen version where the child drags the boat's way and presses Check, and comes with an answer key that shows the route through the water in colour. It sits in a family of twenty picture mazes; the first maze with the puppy is the easier start, and the underground ant maze is the next step up, with tunnels on three levels. These are picture mazes with a story; square-grid mazes, dot-to-dot and word sorting have their own pages.