Periodically the trio get into doing mazes. I have purchased a number of Kumon maze books. They are great, but once you get to be good at mazes the Kumon maze books are too easy. This past summer I purchased Bentley the hardest one in the series and he finished it in an hour. At the same time I purchased two harder maze books. I looked for books with a little challenge, but not so much challenge that it kills his interest.
My first choice was too easy. He finished it quickly just like the Kumon book.
My second choice was hard enough that he gave up. That was a couple of months ago. This past week he came looking for a new maze book. I pulled out the one he hadn't finished. He said it was too hard. I gave him a pointer on working harder mazes. When you come to a branch in the maze, you put a dot at the start of the branch you take and if that path dead ends then you go back and put an X over the dot and try the other branch(es). We worked one maze together and then I was told to leave. In 24 hours B finished the maze book. (Jake and Viva also like mazes. They are still happy doing the Kumon mazes.)
Grandma Vicki gave the trio an interesting educational book/toy (FunThinkers by Educational Insights) a couple of years ago. We've played with it a few times, but it was too complicated for the children to do on their own until recently. The last time we tried it I did one of the puzzles with them and then the twins wanted to do it on their own. For the next couple of days the three older children played with the book doing the puzzles on their own. I'm going to buy another book in the series.
