Forts.
There is something about
childhood and forts. We got a
Fort Magic Kit {Kids Activities Blog sponsor} a month ago – it is LOVED – and daily the kids have been building and creating with it!
If you would like to purchase a kit of your own, you may visit the Fort Magic Shop page.
Pssst…at the end of this post we are giving away a Fort Magic Kit like the one you see in the pictures worth $199!
It’s a rare day that there is not some fort or “nook” of some sort built somewhere in our house.
Fort Magic Forts
The Fort Magic Forts that are currently over taking our house are easy to adapt and scalable.
They are easy to put away.
As adults, we all know that our living room sometimes has to be *just* a living room. These forts can be small and winding, or vaulted and tall as the ceiling!
10 Reasons Why our Kids NEED to Build Forts
1) Building forts encourages creativity.
Kids imagine what they want to create and then work to make that happen – it’s a beautiful thing. And often, very often, their idea of a “plan” might look nothing like a fort, it might be a “shopping cart” or a garden of sheets, whatever it is, they are using their imaginations to build and create!
2) It develops spatial reasoning and problem solving skills.
It takes some skill to be able to visualize something and work putting pieces together to make it happen. Your kids are learning to be little engineers and strengthening their logic skills. If this was too tall, or too heavy, what can I do to fix that?? or how can I adapt my plans to still make what I had in mind.
3) Building a fort fosters team work!
Often the best forts need more than one person in order to create them. Navigating the creation of a structure with others is a great way to practice compromising and giving/taking instructions.
4) This activity makes you think “outside the box”.
Is it just my kids or are most forts something else entirely? While your kids are building their brains are planning and scheming.
5) Kids get better at understand sequencing and patterns.
As your kids are building the walls they will learn what works and what doesn’t and they will learn to do what works again, and again in order to create an even bigger structure.
6) Fort = Independence.
This is a “girl only” fort or we are building this to be *our* new home – i.e. “No Mom Allowed”. I love seeing the kids create *their* own place and take ownership over the forts they create!
7) Building a fort gives a sense of accomplishment.
Oh the look of pride when the kids look at the forts they create! The stories they tell at bedtime of all the things they are going to do to add to the fort the next day. Kids love seeing something they create come to fruition.
8) It can create a nook or a place of privacy.
As the architect, Ms. Foster said in
the New York Times, “It’s about having their space, taking control of it. Fundamentally, that’s what architecture is all about. Kids are creating their own personal space, within the space of the home.
9) In fort building, failure is okay.
The forts are going to fall down as they are being built. The walls are going to be crooked, the sheets will be in the “wrong” places – or there won’t be enough of them, and the kids will learn how to build it over again after an accident happens. Life lessons.
10) They grow on you, you can’t just have one…
Once your kids get bit by the fort building bug, they will be building and tinkering for awhile. The forts – and dreams – get bigger and bigger!
Win a Fort Magic Kit!
We are super excited about giving away a Fort Magic Kit due to the generosity of the sweet people at Fort Magic.
There are lots of ways to enter, just choose one {or all} of the options in the box below:
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Fort Magic on Shark Tank
Fort Magic will be on the TV show, Shark Tank tonight! I have already set my DVR and my kids are planning popcorn and treats. I can’t imagine that they won’t be a big hit with the Shark Tank panel.
More About Fort Magic
The Fort Magic Kits come with instructions and
you can also check out the Fort Magic website if your kids are running out of ideas. We aren’t the only ones that are crazy about this toy, check out the ultimate fort built by our friends over at Hands On As We Grow or the Fort Magic customer reviews to see what other families are raving about and how they are building with their kit.
Thanks so much to Fort Magic for continuing to support Kids Activities Blog. We adore working with them! All opinions expressed above are ours.
Get these
rubber connectors to make building forts easy!
Im a teenager, wanted to share a story with you all.
A few summers ago, my cousin and I had an idea. We built a “base” of sorts in an abandoned lot. The base was made of an old aluminum pool, with a tarp roof my father helped hammer into a tree. We had found old tiles and lined the floor with them, and used tires cover with old blankets as seats. We then let the neighboring kids (other high schoolers, middle schoolers, and the grade school kids too) and to our little fort. We told them if they wanted to be there with us, all they had to do was help us make it better. We made some rules, like- don’t go into the hills alone, if you get three strikes for misbehaving, you have to leave for a week while we decide if we should let you back or not, etc. That whole year, only one kid got kicked out. And we let her back after a week. We eventually had a small fire pit-only my cousin and I could use it, and we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows while we told stories. We found a stray dog, and the neighbors gave us food for him. We named him Spot, and he lived in the fort. The youngest member cared for him, as she couldn’t do some of the other things and felt left out. We taught the kids what poison ivy was, and how to get rid of stinging nettle. The parents were proud of us, and we helped keep the neighborhood’s children out of trouble. I doubt others really do things like that, but we live in a bad neighborhood, and wanted to keep kids from doing the wrong thing. Sadly, some drunks came and tore it down one day. The dog, Spot, lived with my cousins up until he got hit by a car. Most of the kids have moved away now, too.
This is so cool. I could build a space ship with my son. No need to keep boxes I have no room for.
WOWW that was great.
Will make students of my school do this activity.
Keep on posting such articles and i am surely gonna follow you now.
Thanks
Thank you for this post. Wow these look so cool my kids would love these because we have no chairs that we can use to make forts
Thanks for the opportunity!