Homemade Ball Maze Game

Hi! It's Scott from Brick by Brick. I love to repurpose materials—use materials in ways different from their intended use.

Recently we made some ball maze games for our preschoolers to use. These games are great for developing hand-eye coordination and for helping kids gain more control over their movements. Plus they are just fun to use!

What you need: cardboard tubes, plastic trays or shallow boxes, tape, large marbles or small balls

Cut your cardboard tubes to shorter lengths. Tape the tubes to the tray, leaving space between the tubes for the ball to roll. We used clear tape and taped through the tubes. You could also tape over the tubes with decorative tape or clear tape.

Kids can hold the sides of the tray and move it around to make the ball roll, trying to get the ball to roll through the tubes.

If you use larger trays/boxes and tubes, you can create a game that kids can use with partners. Add table tennis balls instead of small balls to this larger game.

If you want to add more elements to your game, print letters or numbers on the tubes. Challenge kids to roll through specific tubes. If you are using numbers on the tubes, roll a numbered cube and then try to get the ball through that numeral tube and not through in other tubes.

Adjust the game to fit whatever you want to emphasize. Or keep the game as a motor development activity. Since we had a space theme for these activities, we used balls that looked like planets and called them orbit trays. And our fun was out of this world! (Sorry I couldn't resist.)