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Homemade Marble Run

Hello everyone! We are getting creative these days and making toys from things we have around the house. Our son is aware that we make toys for a living and continues to come up with some great ideas. Today he thought of making his own maze. We thought it was a great idea! Now what would we make a maze out of??

• Cardboard/or cardboard box.
• Popsicle Sticks
• Ball/Bell

You will also need scissors and adult supervision for those scissors!

• Okay so first is first. Determine the size and how many sticks you will need. You could also probably use sticks from outside as long as they are somewhat straight or even pipe cleaners!

• Next you have to decide what you want the maze to look like. We suggest drawing this out on paper to practice or in pencil on the cardboard before cutting.

• Get your maze on! Cut along the areas you are going to put the popsicle sticks and insert the popsicle sticks. We made a hole at the end of our maze that the ball had to go through.

Building a maze was a great family activity. We got to talk about where the ball would go, how it would move, where to put sticks. We had a little engineer on our hands. Super cute. Along with all this great family time, there are a lot of development benefits of this maze….and you know that at Mobi we LOVE toys that disguise learning and make it fun, right?! Open-ended, developmental play is where it’s at!

Here's a video of our marble run!

Developmental Benefits of Maze Building!

Fine Motor Skills: Guiding those sticks into the slits cut for them is a great example of fine motor play. As your little moves the ball through the maze, they also have to work on fine motor as little moves can move the ball a lot…so your kids have to work on controlled movement.

Visual Tracking Skills: Following where the ball goes and where you want the ball to go is great for visual tracking.

Cause and Effect: The way your little one moves the maze dictates where the ball goes. Tons of cause and effect in play!

Coordination: Just like above, as described in cause and effect … coordination is big here. Two hands on the maze, moving a little ball through a course is supreme coordination.

Concentration and Focus: Although it seems all fun and games…there is quite a bit of concentration and focus required to move the ball through the maze and into the hole. We were actually surprised at how much we as adults had to concentrate. The speed of the ball plays into this and of course how the maze is designed…but we were very impressed with our 6 year old and how he handled himself by channeling his focus on being able to get through the maze! 

As you can see, building a maze provides hours of fun and also tons of developmental opportunities.