Teaching Manners With Your Fort Making Kit
Posted December 31, 2018 by Fort Magic
The hardest phrase in any language is probably “I’m sorry”. But, we can’t think of a better way to teach your kids manners (and celebrate National Forgiveness Day) than with one of our Fort Magic building kits! Here at Fort Magic, we have learned that fort building encourages children to learn how to build and maintain positive relationships with others.
Work Together Toward a Common Goal
If you’re having a day where it seems like the kids’ fighting and bickering will never end, bust out your fort building kit. There’s no better way to get your kids to cooperate with one another and become best friends than working together to build something.
Put all the parts out for them and let the kids figure out how to build one of the structures. This way, your kids will have to come together and work as a team. Someone will have to hold the fort design manual and hand the pieces to the person who is building. Then, they will have the fun of picking out material to cover it with and the accessories for inside.
Learn How to Encourage Each Other
Because they will have to work together, your kids will soon learn how much farther they get with kind words rather than with harsh words or screaming. You can step in and model encouraging behavior for them. Let them know how beautifully their fort is coming together!
Your kids will also learn how good it makes them feel inside when they use their words for praising someone instead of tearing them down. Once they get to see and feel how their kindness affects others in building a fort, they can begin learning how to encourage their peers in all other areas of their life. And the best part is, when they finish something with teamwork rather than arguments, they get to have a friend to enjoy their new fort with!
Learn Respect by Teaching Manners
Fort building is also a great way to teach your kids manners. Encourage them to say things such as ”please pass me that stick” or “thank you for helping me”. Manners like this are much more than just a nicety.
Having manners and speaking to others with our “manner words” creates an attitude of respect. Respectfulness has seemingly been becoming a thing of the past; let’s make our kids the generation to bring it back!
Find Each Other’s Strengths
This one goes back to using our words to praise each other. You can encourage your children to seek out each others’ strengths. If they are having a hard time praising one another, you can guide them by having them point out something they like about the other person. Then, find a way for them to use those strengths toward building their fort.
For example, maybe one of them is a good architect or engineer and the other person is more of an artist and has an eye for colorful details. If one of them is good at drawing, they can be the one to come up with the design. Then, the engineer can step in and figure out how to make that design come to life.
Get Rewarded for Teamwork
After all of that hard work and learning how to work as a team, the kids get to enjoy the fruits of their labor! Have a special snack on hand or maybe some hot cocoa that they can enjoy in their new fort. Then, you can sit back and listen to their giggles from inside the fort and forget all about the strife from before.
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.
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.
Play At Home Mom Blog: This super-amazing blog is definitely one of our favorites. Loaded with fun ideas for DIY playtime, with an always-present educational spin.
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.
Twined: Twined is a blog that helps you to easily discover unbiased product reviews and recommendations from the people you can actually trust.
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.
