Keep Kids Moving & Inventing With Fort Magic
Posted October 15, 2019 by Fort Magic
More and more children are becoming sedentary. Kids are spending less time outdoors and are spending their time playing on screens. Fort Magic is a healthy and fun way to get your kids moving while helping their brains develop.
The Benefits of Being Active
It’s easier than ever before for our kids to become sedentary. They spend all day sitting at school with only one short recess. Then, they come home and, if they’re the average kid, will spend more time on a screen than sleeping.
It’s important that we’re purposeful in keeping our kids active because of the many benefits. Kids that live active lifestyles have stronger muscles and bone structure, get better sleep, are at a healthy weight, have a low risk for developing type 2 diabetes, and have a better outlook on life. Active kids will also be able to concentrate better at school and will be more motivated to learn.
How You Can Encourage Your Kids to be Active
Besides limiting their screen time, other things you can do to get your kids active include making it fun and age-appropriate. You have to make sure the activity is motivating. Most kids don’t want to go out jogging with you. However, most kids of all ages enjoy fort building. Here are some ways you can use a Fort Magic building kit to encourage your kids to be more active.
1. Build A Fort Obstacle Course
One of our favorite ideas to get kids moving is to have them build an obstacle course with you. They get to use their creativity as they come up with ideas for the course. Then, they get to have fun building the actual obstacle course.
You can include things they have to crawl through, jump over, and run around. You can search the internet for ideas or see what you can come up with on your own!
2. Take Fort Magic to the Park
This is kind of a two-for-one kind of deal. Not only will your kids get to be active and use their imaginations at the park, but they can also be active with their fort. If you’re having a hard time getting your kids motivated to go to the park, they might be more excited if they get to build a fort there.
If it’s a hot day, you can use the fort as a staging area for a water fight. You can stock it with buckets of water, water balloons, and squirt guns. If it’s not that hot, then it can also just serve as a place to have a picnic at the park. The fort will help them meet some friends and those friends will entice them to play games on the playground.
3. Build A Planting Shed
Many kids love the chance to play in the dirt and dig holes. You can build a fort to use as your planting shed for all your gardening. Before spring, plot out your garden and what you want to plant in it.
Then make sure you buy your plant starts at the right time to make sure you get them in the ground in time. You can set up your fort with tables and other gardening supplies and use your fort to do your spring planting.
4. Just Build!
Just one Fort Magic building kit provides kids with dozens of possibilities. Even if your kids aren’t necessarily doing something active with their fort, just building one will get them using other parts of their brain. It’s a fun activity and will motivate them to get off their screens or stop watching tv. If you can’t come up with any fun ideas to get them moving, just have them start building something!
5. Have A Dance Party
You can set up a fort in your house or on your porch and then cover it with white sheets or fabric. If you use an old sheet, you can paint it with glow in the dark paint and glue glow in the dark stars to it. Set up some fun lights in your fort or a disco ball if you have one.
When it’s dark, turn off all the lights so your fort lights up. Turn up the music and get your kids moving through music. Kids love to dance and if there are fun lights and it’s in their fort then they’ll be more motivated to join in on the fun.
What New Designs Can They Come Up With?
You can host a building competition to see what other designs your kids can come up with. This is a chance for them to use their imaginations. If it’s a nice day, you can even hold the contest in the backyard.
Photo Credits:
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.
Two-Daloo Blog: The Two-Daloo Blog is passionately dedicated to the idea that every child should have the chance to discover the world at his/her own pace through hands-on exploration and play-based learning.
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.
