Inspiring Happiness And Creativity In Children

Posted February 7, 2020 by Fort Magic

Using the creative part of your brain releases the “happy” hormones in your body. Providing an environment for your kids that fosters their creativity will ensure you have happy kids. Here are some of our ideas so you can inspire creativity in your children with just one Fort Magic building kit.

1. Build A Painting Fort

Build the Playhouse design and cover it in old white sheets or other white material. This will become your canvas. You can have the kids dip their paintbrushes into the paint and then flick the paint towards the walls of the fort. Another idea is to saturate small sponges with paint and have them throw those at the walls of the fort. 

After you have finished turning the walls of the fort into a piece of art, have the kids can use this fort to paint rocks that you leave all over your neighborhood. These painted rocks are popular and a special treasure to those that find them. You can even write inspiring messages on them to brighten up someone’s day while inspiring the creativity in your children.

2. Read Books that Inspire Creativity in Children

One of the best ways to foster a sense of creativity is to take your kids on an epic adventure through books. If it’s a nice day, you can build your fort in the backyard and fill it blankets and pillows to make a cozy reading space. Pick a few books that your kids will love and read them aloud as your kids lay on their blankets and picture themselves in the adventure.

You can even create props to use that go along with the books or even dress up as one of the characters in the books. Some of our favorite picture books that inspire creativity include “The Dot”, “Journey”, and “The Snowy Day”. For older kids, we recommend “My Side of the Mountain”, “The Swiss Family Robinson”, and “The Amazing Journey of Edward Tulane”. 

3. Create A Community Craft Fort

If you have some nice weather coming up in your forecast, you can schedule a community craft day right in your front yard. Your kids will have fun designing and creating invitations or flyers that they can pass out in your neighborhood. Have your kids help you build a fort that will serve as the craft fort. We recommend using something such as the Playhouse design. Put several tables in the fort for the kids to craft at and then put craft supplies at each station.

You can put containers of items out that will inspire their creativity and encourage innovation such as toilet paper tubes, buttons, wooden blocks, popsicle sticks, and pipe cleaners. If you have kids in your neighborhood with varied ages, set up a table with craft supplies for younger kids and a table for older kids with supplies such as polymer clay and hot melt glue guns. 

4. Host an Inventor’s Event

You can host your very own Shark Tank right in your home. Encourage your kids to build an “Inventor’s Fort” in your living room. Fill it with supplies that inspire innovation such as boxes, string, tape, sticks, and anything else that might get the creativity flowing in your children. 

While they are coming up with ideas in their fort, set up some chairs outside of the fort. Place a table in front of the chairs along with pens and paper. Get a couple of adults to act as judges and when your kids are done with their inventions, have them bring their projects out one by one to present them to the judges. 

5. Host A Chopped Competition

You can use that same Inventor’s Fort that you created above to host a Chopped competition. This will inspire creativity because your kids will have to really think outside the box to come up with meal ideas from the few ingredients that are provided. This is an especially fun event if you enjoy the show as a family.

Open up one side of the fort and have the judges sit outside the fort while your kids create their food items in the fort. You’ll have to be creative with the ingredients and pantry items since your kids won’t have access to an oven. However, you can set up a microwave on a small table inside the fort. For each child you have, fill a basket with 4 items that they have to incorporate into a plate of food.

6. Host A Creative Writing Competition

If your child likes to make up stories then this would be a good one for you. If your child fights writing, you can have them verbally tell you the story without having to write it down. To host a writing competition, provide each child with a notebook. Have them sit in their fort at the table and chairs that you provide.

Give them a writing prompt and then have them use their creativity to expand on that. After everyone is done, they can do a book reading by reading their piece out loud to everyone. Judge their writing based on the level of creativity and use of words. 

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.

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.

Babble Dabble Do Blog:  One of our absolute favorite blogs for learning, art, and hands-on education. The Babble Dabble Do blog will inspire hours of creativity and awesomely-educational playtime in your home.  A must-see blog for sure.

Kids Activities Blog:  A tremendous resource on all things kids-activities based, you can explore hundreds of ideas for learning and playtime for children and families ages toddler – teens.

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.