#babipurSTEM – Maze Challenge

New challenge for you this fortnight and it’s a really simple one this time. We want you to make a maze, that’s it – The best maze wins! We’re hoping to see lots of creative entries for this challenge. You can use anything you like for this one; Babipur goodies would be lovely to see obviously, but we don’t mind if you raid your recycling bins, the nappy stash, the wardrobes or even your food cupboards!

Why is a Maze a great STEM activity?

For a child to make a maze it’s actually quite tricky as it’s hard for them to design just a single route out, so requires a bit of extra thinking. This encourages planning, which is a very important scientific and engineering mindset.

Depending on the maze itself; from the simple to complicated they all require logic, a bit of strategic creativity and fine motor skills. We’ve had lots of fun setting this challenge up with our 3 children and seeing their unique outcomes. Our not so little ones got stuck right in with the Grapat coins. They created a simple maze with a couple of dummy turns to confuse their siblings.

You could try this with the same materials each time and see how much they improve and what they change. We loved seeing their different takes on it and it’s genuinely amazing to see what 3 different ages come up with.

Obviously, we couldn’t resist having a go too! We set up this invitation to play style maze with some old cous cous in a tray and added the Grimms wooden marbles to encourage our little one to follow the path. Sensory play adds another element, after some maze making we then practiced letters and numbers.

Construction and Engineering

Imaginations can literally run wild with this challenge. The half term holiday is fast approaching and we can already picture doing a super sized outdoor maze with sticks and stones. If it persists on raining then we can do one indoors with some chunky wooden Grimms blocks. We used the Stepping Counting Set and some Grapat Magos for this maze;

We’re going to do some artistic mazes over half term too, this will be great for younger and older kids. Siblings can swap creations and try and navigate their way through the pathways. Those unloved white crayons can be used to create invisible mazes on plain paper; only to be revealed when painted over. Great use for those Okonorm crayon rocks and paints!

How do you enter?

All you have to do is post a picture or video on your public Instagram account or in the Babipur Hangout Group on Facebook showing your little ones making learning fun whilst building a maze. Use the tag #babipurSTEM so we can find your entries and on Instagram don’t forget to tag @babipur too!

Multiple entries are always encouraged and we’ll post some STEMspiration for you over the fortnight. The challenge will run for 2 weeks and entries will count from today up to Wednesday 27th February 2019 at 11am. Both the winner and the next challenge will be announced shortly after.

What’s the prize?

This fortnight we’ve chosen the Grapat 36 coins as the prize.The winner can choose between the earth or the rainbow set. These can be used in so many different ways and are one of our favourite STEM essentials.

You can find a blog post >here< explaining the concept of STEM if you’re unfamiliar with the idea. Please feel free to ask us any questions, this challenge is all about having fun whilst exploring a simple theme in an educational way.

We can’t wait to see what you all come up with for this challenge. We love looking through your entries and seeing how you make learning fun with Babipur!

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