Back to School Sensory Maze

Welcome back to Fine Motor Fridays you guys! We took a bit of a summer break but we are back for Back to School season with new fine motor activities AND a back to school sale on our book! I've got some affiliate shopping links in this post, FYI.

Today I'm sharing a variation of an activity in our 99 Fine Motor Ideas book with a Back to School Twist! I hope it helps to show how adaptable and versatile the activities in our book can be!

In the book, my friend Sarah from Little Bins for Little Hands shared a really cool writing tray type activity that she called a Sensory Maze. We love our writing tray activities and anything that encourages writing skills. I love the creative way she encouraged her son to use a writing tool without actually writing.

I decided to try to tap the excitement in our house for going back to school and make a Drive the Bus version of the sensory maze. It was a big hit, both my toddler and (gulp!) kindergartner really liked driving the bus. I thought my toddler would want to throw the rice but was surprised to see him copy his sister and drive the bus through it as in tended. Hooray!

This idea is really flexible so if you don't have the exact same items, you can still totally do this! For example, we use rice as our sensory maze material but if you happen to dislike playing with food items, you could use aquarium gravel or play sand. I made our little bus out of construction paper but you could use a bus sticker or even a picture of your child.

Back to School Sensory Maze Activity

Materials

Tray, dish or other shallow container

Sensory material (rice, sand, dry beans, etc)

Pencils

Bus sticker or construction paper cut out

Recycled cardboard, construction paper or toy houses

Instructions

If you're making a bus rather than using a sticker or picture of your child, cut out a yellow bus shape and glue on some black construction paper wheels and windows. Tape or stick your bus/child picture about a half inch from the end of a pencil.

You can use a toy house and toy school house if you happen to have them but we made ours from some cardboard from our recycle bin. Flatten out a cardboard box and cut out a house shape with a crease at the bottom to stand it up. Repeat for a school house shape and decorate them both.

Fill a shallow dish with enough of your sensory material to cover the bottom. Lay pencils (or whatever obstacles you can think of) into the sensory material to create a maze. Place your school at one end of the maze and your house at the other. I buried the bottom creased part under the rice to stand them up.

Present it to your child and show them how to “drive the bus” through the maze to get the school bus from home to school.

If he's anything like my son, he will turn the pencils into road bumps and pretend the school bus is a MONSTER SCHOOL BUSSSS! Yessss!!!