DIY Marble Maze

I love marble mazes. This is a project where you can make your own with straws, glue and a box lid. Growing up, my grandpa used t0 have a marble maze made out of wood. I remember always having g0-to things at my grandparents house. I see it in my kids too. They go to grandma and grandpa’s house and they know exactly what is meant for them, and they have their favorites. I too had my favorites, and I loved the maze. I also loved the electronic golf ball hole where you’d try and hit the ball in, and it would shoot back out at you. I actually bought one at a garage sale when I found one a while back. There’s nothing like nostalgic things to bring you warm, cozy feelings. I thought it would be pretty easy to make our own marble maze.

The first thing we did was glue a fun piece of paper onto the bottom of the box. This is purely aesthetic and not necessary, but I liked having a brighter look.

I used an Exacto knife to cut a marble sized hole in the two opposing ends of the box and in opposite corners.

As you can see in the far right picture, I originally was trying glue dots. However, I quickly switched gears because it wasn’t working well. I switched to tacky glue. That worked a lot better. I do wonder if there would be an even stronger hold. I was afraid hot glue would melt the straws and Kenzie wouldn’t be able to help, which takes away the point. Any ideas? Kenzie was in charge of cutting pieces. We worked together to figure out lengths and a path that would work. I put myself in charge of the glue, and she would lay all the straws down.

There you have your own homemade marble maze. How cool is that?

The kids had a lot of fun. It was completely beyond Corban’s skill level to navigate the maze. It was challenging for Kenzie but the perfect kind of challenging. Abby had fun with it too. I even enjoyed doing it a few times. It definitely works on problem solving skills and hand-eye coordination.