The indoors can be a fun place. But nowadays, children spend their time in front of screens, gadgets in hand, and inanimate for hours. While activities involving technology and gadgets may have their own child development benefits, it’s important to diversify daily recreation.
A popular and effective activity indoors worldwide is fort-building. Building forts inspires imagination, broadens creativity, and encourages open-ended play. Especially after the COVID-19 Pandemic, activities indoors have become more and more important for children’s development as access to the outdoors has become limited.
Fort Kits are excellent options for providing your children with varied activities indoors. It encourages independent play and enhances physical, mental, social, and emotional skills. This article will serve as a guide for helping you find the best fort for you and your family.
What Are Fort Kits?
Technology has come far. In the past generation’s childhoods, kids then had to settle for the classic pillow and blanket forts. While timeless and fun in their own right, pillow forts have become outdated due to the strides in modern technology.
Fort kits provide a more efficient and far less messy solution for your fort-building needs. They are easier to store, clean, and maintain. Fort kits also work better for a wider age range as children need parental guidance with the construction of the pillow and blanket forts. These modern-day innovations are specifically made to ensure that children learn and develop. The primary difference between fort kits and the make-shift classics is that these innovations are optimized for learning.
For the most part, children can handle the components of Fort Kits to encourage independent play and exploration. Navigating the parts of the fort kits to build structures strengthens the muscles and bones children need to grow. Finding the best arrangement for the fort sharpens critical thinking, problem-solving skills, imagination, and creativity. Last but not least, being able to play with siblings, parents, or friends, opens doors for children’s collaborative activities and cooperation, improving social and emotional skills.
The Best Cardboard Fort Kits in 2022
Cardboard Fort Kits are the prime variety in the market. With its durability and flexibility, cardboard provides children with products that can withstand their excitement as they play. Further, cardboards are an eco-friendly option when it comes to child development products.
The best Fort Kits provide both parents and their children with valuable perks. Aside from durability and quality, also keep in mind storage friendliness, cleanability, and space-saving features. These are the metrics that will show you whether or not a certain fort kit model is good for your family or not.
Below are the best fort kits on the market. Ultimately, you know what your family needs best. Just make sure that you take the aforementioned elements in mind before you make this important decision. Your children’s early education is important. This article hopes to guide you toward the best choice for you and your family.
The Make-A-Fort product is an award-winning innovation that has impressed families around the world. The basic Explorer Kit is enough to build excellent structures children will surely enjoy, and their excellent add-on features add even more versatility and flexibility. The more components you have through more kits, the more structures you can make with the Make-A-Fort innovation.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
Think of Make-A-Fort kits like legos for big boys. The company provides you and your children with sturdy and highly adaptable components that your children can use for building their dream forts. One Explorer Kit consists of 20 large squares and 18 yellow triangles that can be linked together by 86 connectors to build megastructures indoors.
A single Explorer Kit can provide enough materials for a classic mansion-type fort. But what really takes the Make-A-Fort product to a whole new level is its add-on kit, the Creator Kit. The Creator Kit supplies your children with additional components to build even more dazzling structures.
With a combination of the Explorer and Creator Kits, you can create igloo-inspired kits, tanks, animal forts, and more. The Make-A-Fort company, with its durable cardboard material, is eco-friendly, safe, and non-toxic. This award-winning novelty is best for developing children’s physical skills through active play, imagination, critical-thinking skills, and socio-emotional capabilities.
The Easy Playhouse Sand Castle is charming in two ways: it is easy to set up, and it also offers an art activity for your fort-loving kids. The Easy Playhouse Fort Kit features a deep-sea design, highlighting a sea creatures theme. Your kids can set this fort kit up with very minimal supervision and proceed to color its walls.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
This Fort Kit is so easy to set up that your kids can take the lead with the building process. The fort kit is perfect for both indoor and outdoor setups as it requires little to no assembly. Kids only need to unpack and pitch the fort up in their desired locations.
The product towers over a meter tall. Its design features the classic castle look, complete with a big gate and high towers. Designers ornamented its walls with sea creatures like sharks, divers, fish, and crabs. The art also features the underwater environment to ensure that your kids feel immersed. All these art designs can be your children’s canvass and be their coloring activity.
This Easy Playhouse masterpiece features a pair of fold-out doors, four large windows, four turrets, and eight small windows. Perfect for imaginative play and a day indoors or in the sun, your children can have fun whenever they want, wherever they want.
The products come in a variety of designs ranging from this sandcastle variant to dragons and knights-themed novelties from the same company.
If you’re bored with the typical castle or fort design, the Constructagons Magic Cabin Big Tree Fort for Kids presents an alternate design for playtime. This novelty is a fort in the guise of a huge tree structure. Whether outside or indoors, the Magic Cabin Fort is an excellent option. The product provides your kids with a spacious play area that encourages imaginative play and creativity.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
Entertain and learn with this amazing tree fort from Constructagons. This unique design encourages children to become dreamers and bring out the best of their wild imaginations. The tree fort is a magical place where children can be whimsical and have fun learning, playing, and exploring.
The tree, large as it is, is easy to assemble, featuring straightforward and slotted cardboard panels that help assembly simpler. The first kit consists of 20 durable cardboard pieces and connectors, a roll of hook and loop tape, and a user guide for instructions. The product’s cardboard components are sturdy and durable, guaranteeing a space that can withstand excited and spirited active play.
This product is a fantastic tool for broadening children’s imagination and encouraging open-ended and independent play. The structure highlights four windows and a large door for easy access. The tree fort has so much space that you can easily fit some blankets and some pillows inside for a more comfortable playtime.
Pros
Big and Spacious
Eco-Friendly, Natural, and Safe
Durable and Sturdy
Perfect for Indoor or Outdoor Play
Cons
Relatively Heavy, so Assembly Will Require Adult Supervision
HearthSong Mossy Fortress Indoor Fantasy Fort Kit
The Best Castle-Designed Cardboard Fort Kit for Kids
Capture the full medieval experience with this castle-themed Fort Kit. The HearthSong Mossy Fortress Indoor Fantasy Fort Kit features a texture that resembles mossy castle walls, reminiscent of the medieval period. This HearthSong masterpiece is an excellent toy for pretend play, giving your children knights and dragons vibes for playtime.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
The HearthSong company gives customers a choice between 16-panel and 32-panel options. The 32-panel option, of course, is the optimal choice for your growing children. The sturdy and durable 22-inch panels can be connected with each other from all four sides. You and your children can use the double-sided hook and loop tape that comes with the package to fasten and unfasten the components.
HearthSong provides families with all the components and tools they need to build the fort of their dreams. The package includes 32 heavy-duty, durable cardboard panels designed with mossy stone castle prints. Thirty-two carton building clips also come with the set to give customers enough materials for a two-story structure.
Aside from being durable and sturdy, the fantasy fort kit is also eco-friendly and easy to store. Parents can create a storage box for the components using six panels from the actual fort kit.
Pros
Superb Mossy Castle Design
Flexible Structure for Multiple Build Combinations
Durable and Sturdy
Expandable Through Other Sets
Easy to Assemble
Cons
You May Need to Purchase Additional Velco for Optimal Experience
There’s something for everyone on this list. For those who need a budget solution to their fort kit needs, the Bankers Box Play Cardboard Building Blocks. Despite its highly affordable value, the Bankers Box Building Blocks provides customers with much value. It features 40 colorful blocks your kids can use as building blocks for their fort. If it’s time for some roughhousing, the kids can have fun tearing it down as well.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
Your creative kids will surely have a blast building up the fort of their dreams. Each block of this fort kit can withstand up to 150 pounds of weight, allowing kids to build sturdy structures for playtime. The building blocks give children the chance to explore shapes and sizes as they build structures.
The fort kit includes 40 different blocks varying in size and colors. Blocks have two sizes – large and medium – that come in three colors (red, blue, and orange). These blocks are child-friendly and safe, complying beyond just the required safety standards.
The blocks’ design follows brick patterns, making for a visually exciting fort kit that children will enjoy building and tearing apart. Lightweight and easy to move, your kids can enjoy building their forts without much difficulty.
Pros
Colorful Blocks Are Visually Appealing
Flexible Structure for Multiple Build Combinations
Durable and Sturdy
Assembly is Easy for Kids
Lightweight and Versatile
Cons
Blocks Need To Be Folded Into Form
HearthSong 32 Panel Chalkscapes Style Fantasy Forts
By far one of the best Fort Kits on the market, the HearthSong 32 Panel Chalkscapes Style Fantasy Forts encourages art exploration through open-ended play. The HearthSong Chalkscape Forts provides a multifunctional playtime that focuses on open-ended play and art. Kids can use the walls of the fort for activities, as the fort kit offers a chalkboard function for your artistic children.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
The HearthSong Challkscape Forts is stylish in two ways: the colorful fort, the feature walls that have geometric patterns, and the customizable chalkboard walls. The default colorful walls are aesthetically fantastic all on their own, but the customization that the chalkboard walls provide takes the product’s charm even further.
Each panel included in the kit can be moved around easily, allowing kids to customize their forts however they want. The fort kit consists of 32 heavy-duty cardboard panels that children can configure in unlimited ways. Panels measure around 22 inches in diameter, and eight of these components have window cutouts, giving some diversity in architecture.
However, the product’s biggest charm is its chalkboard function. On the reverse side of the wall panels are chalkboards that your kids can paint on and express their creativity. This Fort Kit provides a space for children where imagination can run wild and artistry can take center stage.
Pros
Panels Are Colorful and Visually Appealing
Walls Can Be Converted Into Chalkboards for Art Time
Flexible Structure for Multiple Build Combinations
Hi, my name is Elena Jones, and my full-time job is a teacher. Through teaching, I have discovered that children learn in many different ways, and have seen the positive impact both STEM and Montessori toys have on children.
Through this site I hope to educate parents and adults about these toys, providing them with useful information on how they can be used, and provide some in depth reviews of different toys to consider too.
