Building Confidence With Forts During Children's Playtime
Posted January 19, 2019 by Fort Magic
You may be wondering how such a simple activity can build confidence in kids, but fort building actually provides a creative outlet for kids from all backgrounds and abilities. Here are some ways that Fort Magic can enhance your children’s playtime, build confidence, and prepare them for a successful future!
The Earlier You Start the More Confident They’ll Be
A buzz word parents and educators have been hearing for the past several decades is STEAM, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics. It’s become a buzz word because we’re realizing how vital STEAM skills are to preparing our children for a successful future.
STEAM skills are vital to building confidence and preparing children for the fastest growing job markets. Studies consistently show that the younger you start your children with STEAM skills, the more successful they’ll be as adults. Fort building is a great way to start building these skills. Even small toddlers can take part in building a fort!
Creativity Builds Confidence
Fort building is a great creative outlet because you don’t need to have any special skills to do it. As long as you can twist and push pieces together, then you can build a fort. It allows your children to put pieces together to build something. If they don’t like how it’s coming together, they can easily pull pieces apart and start over.
Having a creative outlet is vital for children as a way to express themselves and let emotions out in a healthy way. It also helps children to feel purpose, as they create something all by themselves. And, in turn, as they build things, their confidence will grow as they realize that they did that all by themselves.
Embrace Failure
In our perfectionistic society, it may seem counterintuitive to welcome failure. But, that’s the brilliant part of STEAM skills and hands-on learning with fort building. Learning how to embrace failure and then learn from that failure in a positive way is crucial to building a generation of confident, successful adults.
When your children are building a fort and something isn’t working out the way they wanted, or it’s falling apart because it’s not structurally sound, they can learn from this failure. They can figure out why it’s falling down and problem-solve to come up with a new way to build a structurally sound fort. They may be learning this vital skill with forts right now, but as adults, this will translate into the workplace as they confidently think about new ways to fix problems instead of shutting down.
Learn How to Celebrate You
Fort building creates an environment that gets your kids thinking about how they can contribute to society as individuals. They’ll feel empowered to know that they have something valuable to offer. They will learn how to celebrate themselves and celebrate what they have created. Every fort is beautiful and unique and something that they created. That is something to be celebrated!
Creates an Equal Playing Field
It doesn’t matter what your background is, your reading level, or what your socioeconomic status is. Fort building creates an equal learning environment. Kids can take pieces and put them together to build something. It doesn’t matter what they build, just as long as they created something from their imagination, using their own hands.
Your kids will look at their creations and know that they did that themselves. They made that! And the best part: There is no wrong way to build a fort. This will build confidence in your child’s individual choices and decision-making skills, ultimately helping them to grow into confident and empowered adults.
Photo Credits:
Learn With Play At Home Blog: An inspiring educational blog created by a primary teacher that strongly believes in making learning FUN & seamless through childhood playtime ideas and activities.
Epic Childhood Blog: A wonderful family blog about everyday fun and educational activities inspired by play based learning, learning through play, enriched outdoor play, and creative play.
You Clever Monkey: A fun blog with lots of ideas for home and school encouraging children to think, to explore, to question, to contribute, to respect, to create, to play, to engage, to pretend, to care, to communicate, to be confident, to become all that is promised to them.
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.
