AS IN THE LONG AGO

See Part 2 for basic maze instructions. When we did this as a class we spent a lot of time exploring the possibilities which result from the fact that, when you join two points together, as long as your line doesn't cross another line or touch it, your maze is topologically the same.  When you join those first two points you can take your line on as many diversions as you like as long as it doesn't cross or touch.  Like this: When you enter the maze you can reach every part of it.  As long as your line doesn't touch the edge of the page you can reach every part of the page.

Here's how to draw a maze.  Sorry it's taken so long!  When you have drawn the first two pictures in the sequence with the cross and the dots and the four right-angled pieces, pick two adjacent ends or dots and join them together with a bridge.  Then take the next pair of points to the right and left and join them with a bridge.  Continue as shown, but don't cross any lines, or let them touch. Done!

As I remember it, a child came into school with one of those colouring books that have dot-to-dots and the occasional maze that you're meant to find the way through with your pencil.  We started talking about how hard it would be to design your own maze.  It ought to be easy, we thought.  Definitely easier than making a birds nest.  Though these were older children, and not the same ones. The children quickly figured out that you needed one pathway through the maze to the objective, and lots of dead ends to fool the victim.  But it was hard to make the path through the maze un-obvious, and the dead ends were boring.  Plus, if you went wrong when you were drawing it was hard to put it right without making a mess.  So then we went out into the courtyard with every plastic and wooden brick we could borrow from other classes and made mazes using those.  They were more like winding pathways than mazes, but it was definitely fun to do and we spent a...