10 Ways To Inspire Creativity With Your Play Fort Kit
Posted July 20, 2019 by Fort Magic
Anyone can learn how to use the creative part of their brain. The more kids and adults use this part of their brain, the easier it becomes. Here are some of our ideas to get kids started and inspire their creativity using one of our Fort Magic building kits.
1. Teach Cooking Skills with A Diner Fort
Create a fort and turn it into a diner. You can even leave a window opening to pass the food through. Set up a table outside of the fort so that the guests at their restaurant have a place to sit. You can also use “guest check” paper pads so your kids can take orders and practice math by adding up check totals.
The inside of your fort can be the kitchen part of your diner where your little ones can practice their cooking skills as they put the food items together. You can also set up the inside of your fort as the restaurant and have your kids make the items in your actual kitchen. This all depends on the skill and age level of your children.
2. Encourage Entrepreneurs with A Lemonade Stand Fort
An important childhood tradition is to have a lemonade stand in your driveway. Kids can use this to start learning important life skills such as marketing and profit margin. It’s also a good way for them to learn how to interact with others.
You can easily create a lemonade stand fort with our Fort Magic building kit. Use old white sheets so you can paint it. You can also build the fort around a table so your kids have a workspace to set up and the fort overhead will provide a cover from the sun.
3. Learn About Animal Care with A Vet Clinic Fort
Set up the playhouse design fort and fill it with stuffed animals and vet care items. You can use boxes for pet cages. You can set up an area in the fort to encourage kids to care for the animals with a stethoscope and pretend medicine. You can also set up a separate area for them to bathe and groom their stuffed animal friends.
4. Learn About Art with A Painter’s Studio Fort
You can cover the fort with a drop cloth or old sheets so your kids can use the covering as a canvas for painting. You can also attach string across the fort with our fabric clips. Attach clothespins to the string to hang their artwork from.
5. Teach Kids Shopping Skills with A Grocery Store Fort
This is one of our favorite ideas! Set up a part of the fort as your grocery store by placing a few bookshelves inside. Stock the shelves with play food items. You can even plan ahead and keep empty food cans, bottles, and boxes. Thoroughly wash and dry these items then use tape to seal it back up and place in the store.
If your fort is big enough, you can set up the cash register inside your fort or you can place the checkout area on a small table outside the fort. Have the kids take turns being the shopper and being the cashier. If your kids are smaller, you can help them price items. This is a great way to teach them about cost per ounce if you use several different sizes of the same product.
6. Teach Wilderness Survival with A Tent Fort
Plan ahead for this one so you can do it when the weather will be nicer. Build your tent fort and stock it with camping items such as sleeping bags, pillows, and a lantern. You’ll want to research outdoor survival on the internet and have some printouts ready or check out some resources from the library.
7. Teach About A Historical Event with A Themed Fort
If there’s an event in history that you would like your kids to learn about you can dedicate a day to learning! Let’s say you want to teach them about the Titanic. Build a fort using our pirate ship design, which is found in the 24-page building manual. You can modify the design if you want so that it looks more like the Titanic.
Next, you’ll want to gather a few books and videos from the library on the Titanic. You can also serve up frozen iceberg treats and have them stick their feet in a bucket of ice water so they can see how cold the water was.
8. Encourage Creativity with A Sandbox Fort
If you have a sandbox, then you can build the playhouse fort right over the sandbox. They can spend the day engineering different roads or waterways in their sandbox. The fort will provide protection from the sun and will make it that much more fun for them!
9. Teach Building Skills with A Woodshop Fort
The playhouse design fort would work best for this. After you build the fort, place a table inside for a workspace. Place different pieces of scrap wood in a few boxes and place some hammers and nails on the tables. Don’t forget to include some sandpaper to finish their creations. Stand back and let them build whatever their minds can imagine.
10. Learn About Music with A Music Makerspace Fort
This one will take some planning as you need time to gather supplies. You can get creative here when gathering supplies that the kids will turn into musical instruments. Some of our favorite items to recycle into musical instruments include:
Tape together large Red Vines to use as drums.
Fill empty toilet paper rolls with rice.
Fill frozen juice concentrate containers with rice.
Use other plastic containers from food, soda, or juice and fill with rice, beans or small objects.
Turn Pringles containers into drums or fill them with small objects.
Use small boxes with rubber bands for strings.
Create a rain stick with mailing tubes and rice, beans or pebbles.
We suggest using the playhouse design for this fort. After setting up the fort, you’ll want to set up a few tables inside your fort to use as work spaces. Organize the supplies into bins to ensure the kids have minimal direction and lots of room for creativity.
Bonus Ideas To Inspire Creativity With Your Play Fort Kit
1. Concoction Lab
Don lab coats and protective eyewear. Gloves are a must for safety-conscious technicians. A simple fort covered in white sheets creates a lab experience.
Give your children room to experiment with baking soda, vinegar, food coloring, salt, sugar, flour, ice and more. Include test tubes and beakers or simple corked bottles. Funnels and eye droppers allow for more precise mixing.
2. Game Room Fort Conquers Boredom
Build a cozy fort with low tables, pillows and plenty of board games. Days of inclement weather keep kids gaming for hours. (Do not be afraid to restrict the electronic versions. The moaning stops once kids get involved in the movement and activity.)
Encourage more creativity with kids being allowed to mix game pieces to create games of their own. And, remember to include old-fashioned favorites such as jacks or marbles.
3. Writer’s Studio
A quiet cabin fort tucked in the woods or a modern design loft studio offers the perfect retreat for young writers. Stock the fort with journals, pens, paper and the like. Contemporary wordsmiths prefer paperless options such as a tablet. Just keep use limited to writing apps and programs.
Cover the writer’s studio in butcher paper and the surface is ripe for penning masterpieces. Grab a line from a song on the radio, and use it as a story starter written directly on the fort walls. Or, jot seven words across an expanse of paper. Fill in the blanks with a story or poem.
What are your favorite adventure fort ideas and where does your imagination take you? Share your journeys with us below!
Photo Credits:
The Artful Parent Blog: One of our absolute favorite creative blogs for children and families. The Artful Parent blog is filled with simple ideas to fill your family’s life with art and creativity. A must see blog for sure.
Fort Magic Customer Photos via Facebook: Visit our Fort Magic Facebook page to see our customer creativity shine with fun pics and videos of families enjoying their Fort Magic kit during playtime.
Fort Magic Customer Photos via Instagram: Visit our Fort Magic Instagram page to see our customer creativity shine with fun pics and videos of families enjoying their Fort Magic kit during playtime.
