Move one square per arrow, starting at the robot. These grids have no internal walls. Check every intermediate position.
(2,2) → (2,3) → (3,3) → (3,4) → (4,4) → (3,4) → (4,4)
1: A 2: B 3: D
Move one square per arrow, starting at the robot. These grids have no internal walls. Check every intermediate position.
▸ Why It Matters Move one square per arrow, starting at the robot. These grids have no internal walls. Check every intermediate position. Worked example: (2,2) → (2,3) → (3,3) → (3,4) → (4,4) → (3,4) → (4,4) ▸ Getting Started Have your child make two separate tally counts on scratch paper — one for the vertical commands (up and down) and one for the horizontal commands (left and right). Working through the list, they should cross out one "up" with one "down" as a matched pair, and one "left" with one "right" as a matched pair, continuing until no more matching pairs remain in either column. Whatever commands are left standing, uncrossed, represent the actual net movement — for example, three leftover "up" commands and one leftover "right" command mean the character ends up three squares up and one square right from where it started. ▸ If They Get Stuck If tallying and canceling feels confusing or your child isn't sure they trust the shortcut yet, that's a perfectly normal response to a new strategy, and it's worth falling back to the slower, step-by-step tracing method used in the earlier mazes of this series as a check. Both methods should arrive at exactly the same final square, and the act of comparing the two side by side — watching the long way and the short way agree — is often what finally builds real confidence in the shortcut, rather than just being told it works. ▸ Praise Points Praise your child specifically for recognizing when a shortcut applies rather than only for landing on the correct final square: "You realized you didn't need to trace every single step this time — you just canceled out the opposites and found the answer directly. That's real mathematical thinking, not just following directions one at a time."
This worksheet develops mental simplification skills: instead of tracing every step, children learn to count how many opposite-direction commands (up/down, left/right) cancel each other out to find the character's net position directly.
After mastering this shortcut, try a Matrix Reasoning puzzle to practice a different kind of rule-spotting — identifying how shape, color, or rotation changes across a grid instead of a sequence.