Colour-By-Path Maze

A colour-by-letter grid that hides a picture

The page is a grid where every cell carries one of four letters: R, B, G or Y. A line printed above the grid names the letter to colour in. Colour every cell with that letter and a heart appears.

Despite the name, there is no maze here and nothing to trace. It is a spotting-and-colouring activity, which makes it the gentlest thing in this category and the right one to hand a child who is not ready to plan a route through anything.

Which letter is the answer changes every time

The key letter is picked at random for each sheet, and the instruction line at the top is generated to match it. Every other cell gets one of the remaining three letters, also at random.

So two children sitting side by side with sheets from two different generations are colouring different letters, and neither can shortcut by copying. It also means you cannot memorise the answer — a real limitation of most colour-by-number pages, where the same picture always has the same key.

Grid size

Four options: 18, 22, 28 or 34 cells across.

• 18 — big cells, crayon-friendly, picture resolves fast.
• 22 — the default, at 484 cells.
• 28 — 784 cells, and a noticeably smoother heart.
• 34 — 1,156 cells. A long, quiet activity, which is sometimes precisely what is wanted on a wet Sunday.

The heart gets more clearly defined as the grid grows, because a curved edge drawn in squares needs squares small enough to describe the curve. At 18 the shape is blocky. At 34 it is smooth.

The solution page

Turn it on and a second copy of the grid prints with the key cells shaded in the matching colour, so you can check a finished sheet at a glance rather than reading 480 letters.

What it is practising

Visual discrimination and sustained attention, mostly. A child has to hold one target letter in mind and check hundreds of cells against it without drifting, and drifting is exactly what shows up: the mistakes cluster, because attention goes in patches rather than at random.

It also gives the letters R, B, G and Y a job to do. A flashcard asks a child to name a letter; this asks them to use one, which is a different and slightly harder thing.

Print at 100% scale on A4 or US Letter. Any crayon or pencil will do; the cell borders are printed light so a coloured cell still shows its letter underneath.