Turkey Maze
Created for free at puzzleandprint.com
Turkey mazes
Four Thanksgiving turkey mazes from 20 to 30 squares across, each with the solution on its own page.
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Turkey 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.
Turkey maze, large print20 × 20 grid · EasyDownload PDF ↓
Turkey maze, everyday24 × 24 grid · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Turkey maze, longer27 × 27 grid · MediumDownload PDF ↓
Turkey maze, challenge30 × 30 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.
The turkey is drawn side on, facing right, with its tail fanned up behind it: a fan of rounded feathers, a plump body, a head with a beak and a wattle, and two legs. Side on rather than from the front, because a maze can only show its outline, and a turkey seen from the front has its head inside the fan where no outline can show it. From the side the head stands clear of the tail, which is what makes it a bird.
The sheets start at twenty squares rather than the sixteen most shapes here begin at. Below twenty the neck and head shrink to a square or two and read as a lump on the side of the tail, so the maker will not carve a smaller turkey either: asking for less gives twenty. The turkey keeps about 43 percent of its grid on all four sheets, from 173 squares on the Large print to 388 on the Challenge.
The way in is on the far left edge of the tail and the way out is the tip of the beak, so every route finishes at the turkey’s head. The legs are always a dead end, and on none of the four sheets does the route go down either one.
Thanksgiving week is short at school, and this is the sort of sheet it calls for: something to hand out on the Tuesday or Wednesday before the break, or to leave on the kids’ table while dinner is still cooking. Each PDF is two pages, the maze and its solution, and every maze has exactly one route with no loops.
How much of the turkey maze route runs through the tail
More than you might guess on some sheets. On the Large print turkey, 59 of the route's 81 squares are in the tail feathers and the body gets only 11, so the puzzle is mostly a climb around the fan before a short run along the back and up the neck. The Longer turkey is similar, with 85 of its 132 route squares in the tail, and its route is the longest of the four.
The Everyday and the Challenge turkeys split the work more evenly. The Everyday route spends 46 squares in the tail and 38 in the body, and the Challenge spends 34 in the tail and 35 in the body, with the rest of each route in the neck and head on the way to the beak. That gives a hint for a stuck child that does not hand over the answer: on the Large print and the Longer, stay up in the feathers; on the Everyday and the Challenge, come down into the body sooner.
The long detour inside the challenge turkey
The Challenge turkey has the second shortest route of the four, 83 squares on a 30 by 30 grid with corridors about 6 mm wide, and it hides its difficulty in a single branch. Fifty-one squares in, a turn leads into a branch of 169 squares, more than two fifths of the 388 squares in the turkey, and the longest path into it runs 95 squares before it stops. A solver who takes that turn can spend longer in it than the whole route would have taken.
The Longer turkey has a trap of its own near the end. Its route is 132 squares, and on the 115th, seventeen squares before the beak, a turn leads into a branch of 80 squares with a path 46 deep. The Everyday turkey is gentler: no wrong turn on it runs further than 26 squares, and the Large print's longest is 28, both short enough that a child finds the dead end before losing heart. That makes the two smaller sheets the ones to hand to a whole class, with the Longer and the Challenge kept for fast finishers.
Common questions
Why does the turkey maze start at twenty squares?
Because below twenty the turkey stops looking like one. At sixteen or eighteen squares the neck and head are only a couple of squares across and merge into a lump beside the tail; at twenty the head, beak and wattle separate from the fan. The maker on this page opens at twenty and will not go lower, and the four ready-made sheets are 20, 24, 27 and 30 squares across.
Does the route go down the turkey’s legs?
No. On all four sheets both legs are dead ends hanging below the body, and the route never enters either one. The way out is at the other end of the bird, through the tip of the beak, so a pencil that heads down a leg has gone the wrong way.
Is there a Thanksgiving frame for the turkey maze?
Yes, three of them. The border picker in the maze maker on this page offers the Thanksgiving designs and starts on Plain, so the frame is only there if you pick one. The maze shrinks a little to make room for it, and the solution page prints unframed either way.
Want to know when new printables go up?
New printables when they go up, mostly seasonal, a few times a year.