{"id":160,"date":"2011-12-28T00:42:43","date_gmt":"2011-12-28T00:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/?p=160"},"modified":"2012-04-21T17:47:58","modified_gmt":"2012-04-21T17:47:58","slug":"childhood-lost-ii-the-importance-of-forts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/?p=160","title":{"rendered":"Childhood Lost II – The Importance of Forts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/strong>What are some magical things you remember about your childhood; playing football, hide and seek, flashlight tag, building forts? I worry that many children today never experience the childhood that I once took-for-granted.<\/p>\n

Last week at school, we were reading the book, Hatchet<\/em>. Hatchet is story about a boy who survives a plane crash in the north woods. To enrich their reading experience, I had my students work outside in groups building debris huts. It was the happiest that I have seen<\/p>\n

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Debris Hut<\/p><\/div>\n

some of my students all year. They had to work together, and create something out of a pile of sticks and leaves. I figured that it was the first time many had built a fort. But two of my students told me that they had built a fort out of sticks and garbage bags, and had eaten their lunch inside. Two others said they had built a fort, and it was so special that they had gone back repeatedly during the summer.<\/p>\n

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What is the big attraction of fort building? My daughter, Laurel gives an insight into this question. \u201cI remember when I was in elementary school, the boys and girls built different forts. You had to be \u201cinvited\u201d to enter someone\u2019s fort. It was \u201ctween\u201d drama in action, all taking place in a house made of sticks! We built forts at home too. For some reason I remember having a cracker jack box out there, and sitting in the fort looking at the prize in the box.”<\/p>\n

Laurel, also adds, “Forts were amazing for a number of reasons:<\/p>\n

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  1. Just the physical\u00a0aspect of building something and having the satisfaction when it was done.<\/li>\n
  2. Building forts taught me to work with others and to compromise on our ideas.<\/li>\n
  3. I could always improve\/change my fort \u00a0(A work in progress \u00a0– just like life!).<\/li>\n
  4. Hanging out in a fort breeds imagination.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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    If you have no sticks, pitching a tent in the backyard is another form of a \u201cfort building\u201d that can be just as much fun.<\/p>\n

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    In winter, building a quinzee hut is a great way to spend time outdoors. To make a quinzee, you pile up a bunch of snow, leave it for a few hours and then when the snow has compacted, you dig out a hole for yourself to hang-out in.<\/p>\n

    Rules of fort Building<\/span><\/p>\n