Shamrock Maze
Created for free at puzzleandprint.com
Shamrock mazes
Three leaves, one route, and the solution on its own page.
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Shamrock Maze, Solution
Created for free at puzzleandprint.com
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Four mazes, each a different size. Every one is a two-page PDF, the maze, then the solution on its own page.
Shamrock maze, large print16 × 16 grid · EasyDownload PDF ↓
Shamrock maze, everyday20 × 20 grid · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Shamrock maze, longer24 × 24 grid · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Shamrock maze, challenge28 × 28 grid · HardDownload PDF ↓Every sheet here is free to print as often as you like. If one saved you time, the tip jar is on Ko-fi.
Three leaves, not four. A shamrock is the emblem of the day and a four-leaf clover is a luck charm, and they are different symbols that get used interchangeably by people who are not from Ireland. This one has three, which is why it reads as the badge rather than the wish.
The shape is one of the most awkward to carve, and the open area at the center is the reason it works at all. Three leaves spaced far enough apart to look like three leaves do not touch each other, and three shapes that do not touch are three separate mazes with no way between them. A small area in the middle joins them, and every route runs through it, which gives the puzzle a natural crossroads.
Only about a third of each grid is maze: the outline keeps 90 of 256 squares on the Large print sheet and 260 of 784 on the Challenge. So the 28 by 28 Challenge shamrock has about as many squares to explore as a plain 16 by 16 maze, which has 256, because everything outside the leaves, the center and the stem is left out of the puzzle.
Each of the four sheets is a single route with no loops, in a two-page PDF with the solution on the second page. The maker on this page carves a shamrock from 16 to 30 squares across, and asking for less gives 16, the smallest size it allows for this outline.
Does the shamrock maze route go through all three leaves
The shamrock maze route passes through all three leaves on three of the four sheets: on the Everyday, Longer and Challenge shamrocks it enters through the left leaf, climbs through the top leaf and leaves through the right one. Only on the Large print shamrock does it cross straight from the left leaf to the right beneath the top leaf, which is left as a side trip. On the three larger sheets the top leaf carries a real share of the journey, 16, 21 and 20 squares of the route respectively, so the maze is a tour of the whole shape rather than a crossing.
On the Large print sheet the top leaf is the trap instead. One turn, six squares before the way out, leads up into it, and the path through the leaf runs 24 squares before it ends, nearly as long as the 29-square route itself. A child who climbs into the top leaf on that sheet has gone wrong; on the other three, a child who avoids it has. That reversal is worth knowing before handing out a mixed set, because the same hint gives opposite answers on different sheets, and it is easy to tell the wrong child to try the top.
How short is the large print shamrock maze
The Large print shamrock's route is 29 squares, the second shortest of the 64 ready-made mazes across the maze pages after the 24-square Large print mitten, and shorter even than the eight-square First maze on the easy page, whose route is 41. Its corridors are about 11 mm across and it passes five forks, the first of them nine squares in. For the youngest children in a class on St. Patrick's Day, that makes it a sheet they can finish while older ones work on something bigger, and at sixteen squares the shamrock still reads clearly as three leaves, an open middle and a stem.
The bigger shamrocks do not grow in step with their grids. The Everyday route is 62 squares, the Longer 83 and the Challenge only 64. The Challenge's difficulty is in its narrower corridors and in one branch rather than in distance: on the square before the way out, a turn leads into a branch of 89 squares that reaches all the way down the stem, with a path of 60 squares into it. With squares of about 6.5 mm, the Challenge is a pencil sheet for older children, and the Everyday, at about 9 mm, sits comfortably between the two.
Common questions
Is a shamrock the same as a four-leaf clover?
No. A shamrock has three leaves and is the emblem of St. Patrick’s Day, while a four-leaf clover is a luck charm with one leaf more. The outline on these sheets is three round leaves drawn to the same size, one at the top and one on each side, with a stem that runs from the center down to the bottom edge of the grid.
Why is the middle of the shamrock so open?
It is open because the three leaves do not touch, and the small area at the center is what joins them into one maze. The generator keeps only the largest connected piece of any outline, so without that join it would quietly drop at least one leaf at every size from 16 to 30 squares. On all four sheets the route starts in the left leaf, crosses the center and leaves through the right.
Should a child go down the stem of the shamrock maze?
No. On all four sheets the stem below the leaves is a dead end, a strip two squares wide that runs four squares down on the Large print sheet and seven on the Challenge, and the route always crosses between the leaves instead.
Want to know when new printables go up?
New printables when they go up, mostly seasonal, a few times a year.