I was surprised when making mazes with a class of Year 3 and 4 children that mazes on paper were not part of their culture. Two of the class had met `real life' mazes with hedges but otherwise the children did not know what I was talking about! In the past nearly every comic, annual and children's corners in newspapers had a maze of some sort. I made the mistake of assuming this was still so!

Thus the introduction to this investigation should make sure that the pupils know what a maze on paper is. The terminology to be used should also be established - `start', `finish', `path', `false trail' or `dead end' and `walls'.

The youngest and less able children found it easier to put in all the `walls' and then rub out those they did not need.

Mazes can be made any shape and can be based on squares, circles, triangles and hexagons. They can be the curved lines of the "Which child has caught the fish?" type.

In the past mazes could be done (in the end) by always taking the right hand turn. With `modern' mazes this is not always the case. Perhaps pupils could find, or design, such a maze.

The making of mazes leads into areas of mathematics such as topology and the language of geometry. Older pupils can explore the NRICH website for references to other sites such as http://www.maze-world.com/ which has a database of mazes to visit all over the world.