Fort Building or Enclosed Spaces Supervision Guidelines

FORT BUILDING OR ENCLOSED SPACES SUPERVISION

TOPP KIDS always tries to foster creativity through imagination, and what’s more fun (for children and educators) than building forts!? Obviously supervision during fort building and play needs to be at an even higher level than activities such as Lego building, for example, because of the opportunity for misconduct. At all times staff must be able to see everyone clearly inside of their fort. Usually this means at least one or more sides needs to be open towards the middle of the room. Best practice would be to have one or more staff member (always visible by the other staff) building with the children and checking every fort often and irregularly in order to execute effective supervision.

8 REASONS WHY OUR KIDS NEED TO BUILD FORTS

1. BUILDING FORTS ENCOURAGES CREATIVITY. Kids imagine what they want to create and then work to make that happen – it’s a beautiful thing. And often, very often, their idea of a “plan” might look nothing like a fort; it might be a “table” or a garden of sheets. Whatever it is, they are using their imaginations to build and create!
2. IT DEVELOPS SPATIAL REASONING AND PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS. It takes some skill to be able to visualize something and work putting pieces together to make it happen. Your kids are learning to be little engineers and strengthening their logic skills. If this was too tall, or too heavy, what can I do to fix that?? Or how can I adapt my plans to still make what I had in mind?
3. BUILDING A FORT FOSTERS TEAMWORK! Often the best forts need more than one person in order to create them. Navigating the creation of a structure with others is a great way to practice compromising and giving/taking instructions.
4. THIS ACTIVITY MAKES YOU THINK “OUTSIDE THE BOX”. While your kids are building, their brains are planning and scheming. Let them use a range of materials to build what they want!
5. KIDS GET BETTER AT UNDERSTAND SEQUENCING AND PATTERNS. As kids are building the walls, they will learn what works and what doesn’t, and they will learn to do what works again, and again in order to create an even bigger structure.
6. BUILDING A FORT GIVES A SENSE OF ACCOMPLISHMENT. Oh, the look of pride when the kids look at the forts they create! The stories they tell at home of all the things they are going to do to add to the fort the next day. Kids love seeing something they create come to fruition.
7. IN FORT BUILDING, FAILURE IS OKAY. The forts are going to fall down as they are being built. The walls are going to be crooked; the sheets will be in the “wrong” places – or there won’t be enough of them, and the kids will learn how to build it over again after an accident happens. Life lessons.
8. THEY GROW ON YOU, YOU CAN’T JUST HAVE ONE…– Once kids get bit by the fort building bug, they will be building and tinkering for a while. The forts – and dreams – get bigger and bigger!