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Making a simple magnetic marble maze creates many hours of fun for kids of all ages. All you need are magnetic tiles, marbles and a metal pan! Have fun!
Magnetic tiles are a fun, open ended toy that gets played with daily in our home.
My boys and I spend so many hours creating and playing with our magnetic tiles and coming up with new ideas to use them!
If you are not familiar with magnetic tiles, they are plastic, translucent shapes that have extremely strong magnets inside.
Which is awesome for kids to build a variety of different structures on a variety of different surfaces!
Leading to a lot of long-lasting entertainment.
It is important to me to get the most out of the toys in different ways and these tiles definitely do that.
We have collected many sets over the past few years. They hold up incredibly well, given the amount of wear and tear they get!
Create a Magnetic Marble Maze
My boys decided to create a magnetic marble maze challenge using items we had on hand.
This is a simple no-prep activity that had them busy for an hour!
For this magnetic maze activity, you will need:
- A metal pan that can be held and manipulated (a baking or pizza pan is great option!)
- Magnetic tiles of different shapes and sizes (affiliate link)
- Marbles
I ended up using a round metal tray that I keep on hand for various sensory plays.
How to Create a Marble Maze with Magnetic Tiles:
To create our magnetic marble maze, I pulled some of our smaller magnetic tiles out of our collection.
I used square, small and longer triangles for our maze. If you have a bigger pan, you can use bigger magnetic tiles.
First, we laid the magnetic tiles out on our metal pan with enough spacing between them to roll a marble between them.
It works best if you can mark a starting and finishing point of the maze (you can mark these simply with a piece of tape). This way the kids have a goal to work towards.
If you have younger children, laying the tiles down is something you can prepare in advance, or even work together on.
My boys are ages seven and nine so they were able to create different maze challenges for each other on their own.
Creating the different mazes for each other was a great spatial awareness activity for them.
As they placed and moved the tiles around their surface, they navigated what layout would allow the marble to pass through.
Building the magnetic marble maze is only half the fun!
Next, try rolling the marble through it! All the way from start to finish.
My boys had so much fun navigating their turn at the maze, rolling the marbles around the magnetic tiles. Trying to find their way through the magnetic marble maze they created.
Above all, I loved that they could easily create new maze challenges over and over for each other!
Speaking of mazes, I love this round up of all sorts of different mazes that you can create with your child!
Extending the Learning of the Maze
If you are creating your maze with your toddler or preschooler, have your child tell you the shapes and colors of magnetic tiles that you are using.
Similarly, I love this super simple activity that uses blocks to help toddlers learn their shapes and colors!
It was a fun and engaging activity that promoted all kinds of learning: planning, problem solving, building, balance and control.
This magnetic maze challenge would be perfect for travel and road trips too! It is so portable and can be hours of endless fun while on the road.
Check out this post for more fun activities to keep your child entertained while on the road!
Do you have magnetic tiles in your home?
What is your favorite way to play with them? I would love to hear!
Nice post! This is the best magnetic maze activity I have seen yet. As my nephew loves playing with magnetic tiles, I used to buy her Kids Magnetic Building Tiles Set. And I see her playing some activities with magnetic tiles. Through playing this activity, toddlers can learn the shapes and colours of magnetic tiles. Keep sharing interesting activities like this.
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