There are many books of mazes and online interactive mazes available. Try to have different resources available in the classroom while you are working on this unit. Early finishers or students who need more challenge could be given the opportunity to work with the other mazes or draw their own. 

Session 1

Many students may have some experience of using mazes, whether it is walking through mazes, or solving pen and paper mazes in puzzle books. 

1. Draw a simple maze on the board (or photocopy one up to A3). Personalise by creating a scenario that gives purpose to the maze.  For example, a ruru finding its nest in a tree, a kiwi going back to its burrow, a rabbit finding its way back to its burrow, a bee flying to its hive, a pirate finding the treasure.  
2. Ask students if they can use their eyes to see the path through the maze. Alternatively give the students copies of the maze and ask them to trace the path using their fingers and once they have found the end, to trace the path using a pencil.  
3. Choose a volunteer to come up and draw the path through the maze.
4. Ask students how they could explain to someone who can’t see the maze where the line has been drawn. Encourage the use of accurate terms like up, down, left, and right. Follow the line through the maze as students describe it.
5. Draw another example on the board. Provide a context for the maze such as a wētā finding its way to its home in a hole in a log.
6. Ask students to describe the route they would take to get through the maze. Draw the route as they describe it. Individual students should only give one direction at a time (ie. Go down first). If students give unspecific instructions such as go round the corner draw the line incorrectly to force them to describe the route accurately.

Sessions 2-3

Maze Pairs

In this activity one student has a picture of a maze and the other has a blank grid. There are 4 mazes (two basic and two harder), and two blank grids (one for the basic mazes and one for the harder ones) available as copymasters. You can also easily make more mazes by using a vivid to draw walls on the blank grids.

1. The student with the maze has to solve the maze and then give their partner instructions for the route to follow through the maze (the instructions should include a direction and a number of squares eg. go down 2 squares). The partner with the grid should draw a line on a grid to show the route described to them. Make sure they start in the correct place.
2. Once the person following the instructions has completed a line across their grid they can check the answer by comparing the mazes and looking to see if the path drawn goes through any walls.
3. This could also be done as a whole class activity, with all students having a blank grid and the teacher giving instructions. Then a student could be given the opportunity to give instructions to the class, or students could break off into pairs.

Put Yourself in the Maze

For this extension to Maze Pairs tell students that they have to imagine that they are actually in the maze themselves, and that the only things they can do are to move forward or to turn left or right. This makes the activity much more challenging, as they now need to keep track of the direction they are facing as well as where in the maze they are. Counters with an arrow drawn on to indicate direction faced would be a useful aid.
The activity proceeds as in Maze Pairs above but both partners should use a counter with an arrow as they plot their route through the maze.

Outdoor maze

In this activity students take the direction giving skills they have used in the classroom outside and onto a larger scale.

1. Draw a large but fairly simple maze on the tennis court with chalk. You may like to provide a context for the maze, such as a tuatara is finding its way back to its burrow.
2. Get students to take it in turns to be blindfolded and directed through the maze by a partner who is not allowed to touch them, but has to give instructions about direction and distance.
3. The challenge is to get through the maze with as few instructions as possible and without touching or crossing the lines.
4. This could be a good opportunity to talk to students about the difficulties faced by people with impaired vision. Was it easy to get through the maze? Was it easy to give someone else directions through the maze?

Session 4

Let students draw their own mazes on grid paper, and challenge a friend to first solve it, and then give instructions for how to get through it. Display some examples of a variety of simple mazes as inspiration.
You may need to give some guidance in drawing mazes – ensure that they are solvable, but try to have plenty of false paths and dead ends.
Possibly students could take their mazes to another class and show them how they have learned to give accurate directions through the maze, or take them home to share with whānau.