Fort Building Kit

My brother-in-law made his son a fort building kit for his birthday this year.  I was inspired to do the same.  It's super easy and such a great way to foster coordination, imagination, and problem-solving skillz.  All you have to do is buy 3/4" PVC pipes (you can do 1" but they are a little hard to work with and put into the fittings) and the necessary fittings.  Most of those things can be found at your local hardware store.

 

We started with a bundle of 10 10' 3/4" PVC pipes.  Just to make things easier, we cut each 10' length into 3 equal parts.  My BIL cut his into different lengths which is fine for an older kid (his son is 12), but I wanted to make things simpler for my 4, 7 & 9 year olds.  We later picked up 3 more lengths of pipe to cut up.  Honestly, we could probably cut up at least 20 of those and still never have enough.  You know what you say about growing into the house fort you live in...

tee with 90degree side outlet

The next thing you need is the PVC fittings (make sure they are 3/4", the same as your pipe).  Most of what we needed, we found at Lowe's or Home Depot.

tee fitting

But there were a few specialty ones we had to order online.  Like the 4-way & 5-way 90degree elbows.

The caps, straight connectors, tee-crosses, and 90degree side outlet elbows (not picture here) were all at the local hardware store.  The top two examples in the above pics were ordered from online.

As you can see, the kids have really gone to town and filled the room with several different forts.  They've learned a lot already from what they've built since Christmas and are creating more sophisticated designs each time.

PVC is slippery, so you need something to fasten the sheets & blankets on.  We started with safety pins, but again, the younger set has trouble manipulating them.  I wanted some kind of a clip that was easy to squeeze open but would hang onto the pipe.  After looking at about a thousand options on Amazon & at the hardware stores, I stumbled upon these large hair claws.  They are perfect.

we don't usually use this many in row, but wanted to give you an idea of size

 They have two drawbacks: they will break after repeated use or if stepped on, and they don't hold a heavier blanket.  However, they are perfect for sheets and other light coverings.  And when they've finally all broken, we'll probably move to some sort of chip clip when the kids are older and have bigger, stronger hands.

seen from underneath

You need a lot of the clips for the larger structures.  We found that generally a double or queen size sheet is best (or king if you have it).  I'll probably order some more clips because we are using safety pins when the kids fight and have to make "their own" forts.  (Forgot to mention they could be learning cooperative techniques from this kit probably because it hasn't been happening here...yet...)

Here they are with some friends.  Apparently this is the spa.  Must not be a very good one based on their facial expressions...

 

Side note: I bought some wool upholstery fabric on clearance and made a couple drawstring bags to keep the fittings and the clips in when we clean up.  We throw the bags, the pipes, and the sheets in the space under the stairs when not in use.