Easy Indoor-Outdoor Portable Fort for Kids
This easy indoor-outdoor portable fort for kids can be used for any age or it can be used as part of the third grade “housebuilding” lesson.
To create a little portable indoor/outdoor fort…
1. Purchase a few bamboo rods (the kind you get at the gardening center for 1.00 each…they are also at the dollar store). If you are lucky you might have a lot of nice tall straight sticks around you to use instead (free) but we don’t so…THEN you tie them all together at the top as tight as you can with yarn or string or something…
2. Spread them all out, the string will stop them from falling…
3. Add a large scarf or piece of fabric or even a sheet (Free if you have one already…gosh I hope you do! Or you can get cheap cotton sheets at Goodwill for about $3.00 or at another store…sale section for under $10.00).
Cost of materials: $6.00 – $15.00
Look on child’s face as they play with it: priceless
This block is one reason Waldorf education creates great scientists.
One of the many reasons we decided to base Earthschooling on Waldorf-inspired principles was because of the strong science base Waldorf-inspired education provides.
When I share this thought with parents and teachers the first questions they ask is (something like), “How can Waldorf-inspired education create great scientists? And what do you mean – strong science base? Waldorf schools do not have a computer in every first grade classroom, and they completely leave the T (technology) out of the STEM* curriculum!”
However, in looking at the scientific method that we formally teach our students in eighth grade we can see how their Waldorf-inspired education has supported them even since they were toddlers.
The scientific method is something that has been around for more than a thousand years. It was described in a book written by Avicenna in 1023 and has been around in other forms before his time. It is an established method of exploring a scientific idea and recording the results. The basic steps are:
- Observation of a phenomenon & asking a question
- Constructing a hypothesis to explain the phenomenon
- Using the hypothesis to make predictions
- Testing & analyzing the hypothesis
So how is this reflected in Waldorf-inspired education?
You can read our full article on this topic HERE.
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