More online printable mazes and puzzles

Mazoons.com has some good mazes for a little bit older kids, plus a good page on how to draw your own mazes.

Printactivities.com has mazes in alphabet shapes and other seasonal themes. The connect-the-dots are also pretty good.

You can make your own small maze online here at Jo Edkins' site, as well as learn a little about the history of mazes.

One more? Try allkidsnetwork, they have quiet a few mazes of varying difficulties.


Related posts:
Finding puzzles online

More Online Puzzles

The Human Body, layer by layer

Two related items, but for different age groups:

This is a layered puzzle of the human body, to help kids understand how their body is made and how it works.

Similar to the puzzle above, but this is a book, each page is another layer of the human body. Text accompanies each layer describing what you are seeing how the parts on that layer work.

One of the amazon.com reviews reminded me of the Visible Man/Woman and that brought back some memories:

By the way, the Visible Man and Woman (and horse) are still available, although it seems that the quality is quite poor now and I would not suggest that you buy one anymore. If you have different experiences I'd like to hear about it.

Beleduc Wooden 5-Layer Wooden Puzzle, Your Body Puzzle Boy at amazon.com
Beleduc Wooden 5-Layer Wooden Puzzle, Your Body Puzzle Girl at amazon.com
Uncover the Human Body: An Uncover It Book at amazon.com

More online puzzles

I rounded up a few more online puzzle sites:

discoveryeducation.com (part of discovery channel) has an excellent custom puzzle maker online, including wordsearches (you can enter your own words to use), criss-cross, math squares, mazes, and cryptograms. When you go to their website, don't be put off by the "buy it now" button. The free stuff is on the left hand side. The "buy it now" button allows you to buy a CDROM of the puzzlemaker software, but this is optional.

mazeworks.com (Java required) has an interesting mix of familiar and unusual puzzles and puzzle games. There is a maze generation program, but it is a demonstration of various maze generation algorithms rather than a printable maze program. There are plenty of other interesting things here though, including tower of hanoi, a game called Peg solitaire based on the old game Hi-Q, and a several versions of the block sliding game (I don't know if there is a better name for these games, but when you see it you will know what I'm talking about).

puzzles.com - This one is obvious, lots of good stuff here including logic puzzle

at hereandabove.com you can make semi-custom mazes where you can define the dimensions, path width, and even the colors of the maze.

Ultra Tangoes

"Based on the ancient Chinese Tangram puzzle, Tangoes is a learning tool
that combines artistic and mathematical elements to develop problem solving
skills, creative thinking capacity, and teamwork. Tangoes can be played by one,
two or in teams. Ultra Tangoes Green delivers all the exciting fundamentals as
Classic Tangoes, packed in a smooth vibrant green plastic case with contemporary
black rubber letters. This challenging game includes two sets of seven playing
pieces, in green and black - 27 cards with 54 puzzles and solutions. "

Ultra Tangoes - Green

Finding puzzles online

Cole loves puzzles, and it is gratifying to me that he is curious and likes to solve problems. He started with simple ~24 piece jigsaw puzzles, now he occasionally does a 100 piece puzzle or two (if he can find all of the pieces). More recently he has dived into mazes and wordsearch puzzles. The mazes improve hand-eye coordination as he moves his pencil/crayon through the lines, and also works on his analytical skills by making him look ahead to consider the results of a "do I go left or right?" decision. Hopefully this will carry over into real world decisions like "what would happen if I jumped off the roof?" or "I wonder if it is a good idea to make my dad angry one more time?" and help him make wise decisions. We'll see. There are lots of puzzle books out there, but I would start with some simple free ones from the web first to see if there is even any interest. Here and here are sites with several free printable mazes of varying difficulty.

It is interesting that wordsearches are popular at our house, considering that Cole can't read yet. He knows his ABC's of course, and knows that letters are grouped together to make words, and he can even sight read a few words, but he is fanatical about wordsearch puzzles, especially if they contain words that he does not already know. I hope that he is learning a few new words, but more importantly, he is learning how to be methodical while he is searching for the words in the jumble. Assuming the word doesn't jump out of the page at him, I taught him how to start at the top and look for the first letter in the word, when it is found, then look for the second letter all around that first letter, etc... until the entire word is found. The methodical approach to what is otherwise a confusing situation is something that I hope helps him in his life going forward. There are several free wordsearch sites on the web, possibly the most useful is here, where you can enter whatever words you want and make your own puzzle. This way you can tailor the words for your kid's particular interests and level. I made one puzzle with breakfast foods, another with animals, and one with his friends names for example. The possibilities are as endless as your own vocabulary.

Assuming there is interest, try one of these books next:

The Giant Book of Mazes

Jumbo Puzzle Book: Word Searches, Hidden Pictures, and Wild, Wacky Puzzles! (Jumbo Kids' Books)