Marbulous See Through

Marbulous See Through Marble Maze

I've seen a variety of build-able marble mazes over the years, like Marbulous, and never desired to own one. But once I saw how much the kids liked it, I wished I had gone for it sooner. There's just something mesmerizing about watching those metal balls drop and swirl and spin movable parts as they make their way to the bottom, and the kids never tire of dropping them in, over and over and over.

This is a very basic set that includes 48 pieces, 16 balls, and instructions for building 4 models. As I looked around on Amazon I saw you can buy games with many more pieces - one with 216. In addition, you can even buy specialized pieces separately that jump, swing, light up and make wacky sounds. Looks like we aren't the only ones that like it.

The plastic pieces are brightly colored but still transparent enough to see the balls. They seem fairly durable. The blue and yellow upside-down "U" shaped pieces on the bottom (image above) are each made of two pieces. There is a plastic connecting piece inside the blue one that has broken off. However, you can just hold the two pieces together and putting another piece on top of it holds it together fine. The small balls remind me of metal ball-bearings. Like any small pieces that may look edible, monitory for safety.

Here is an image of the instruction guide:

LEFT: 15 piece maze.                                        RIGHT: 48 piece maze.

To play, simply empty the pieces out of the box, choose a model from the instruction guide and go to work. There are four models and they increase in the number of pieces needed as you go. Number one takes 15 pieces, number two takes 21, number three takes 29 and number four takes all 48 pieces. Then of course you can skip the instruction guide and build as many models as you want from your own imagination.

I used this with several kids who have a moderate cognitive disability and they loved it.

Try this:

• Play with the pieces before building. Get a feel for them and how they will snap together. 
• Set out only the pieces needed for the model you will be building if looking over too many would be confusing.
• Hand the pieces to the individual one at a time in the order they need for building.
• Correct errors as they are made. Wait too long and it may topple on you as you try to remove and replace pieces.
• Cover everything on the instruction guide except what you are working on to reduce unnecessary images that may be confusing.
• Work on visual discrimination, spatial relations, visual closure, figure ground, visual tracking, eye-hand coordination, manual dexterity, bilateral integration, planning, creative play, executive functioning skills, process skills, play and leisure exploration and participation

In the box: 48 pieces, 16 balls, instruction guide

If you are interested in purchasing this item or just want more information, click on the image below.