Many might think building a stick house is just a fun activity to keep your kids occupied – and it is in a way- but it’s so much more than that! It will build you child’s confidence and creativity in a super fun and engaging way.
If you already have quite a few sticks around your home then you have everything you need to get started!
Planning and building a stick house grows:
- Basic literacy skills
- Planning skills
- Basic engineering skills
- Problem solving skills
- Teamwork skills (if there’s more than one child involved)
- Gross motor skills
- Creativity
If you love this activity, let you kids make a maze using sticks next!
Who would have thought a simple stick activity could be so beneficial to our children’s brains! That’s what I love about nature though. You don’t have to go far to teach your children the essentials in a fun and tactile way – something that sorely lacking in education institutions these days.
To understand just how fun building a stick house can be for your kids, you really must watch the video below.
What you’ll need to make a stick home
- Paper and pen (for planning the home)
- Lots and lots of long sticks and branches
- Lots of items in the house that children are allowed to play with outside.
How to build a play home using sticks
- Ask your children to plan their home on a piece of paper. It can be helpful to check out house plans on the internet too. Basic is better but if they’ve done it before they can extend this activity and go into more detail.
- Collect a heap of sticks and branches from around your house. You could even use grass clippings or leaves for this activity too!
- Using the plan they made, ask your children to make the home out of sticks.
- Nominate a leader to help direct where to put the sticks and materials. It’s fine to swap the leader over throughout the activity so that everybody gets a turn. Builders have to change their plans from time to time so it’s okay if they don’t follow their plan to a tee!
- Once it’s complete, they’ll really love bringing all the household items in to their house layout and playing the afternoon away.
To get the most out of this activity, don’t forget to do the planning stage. This was really beneficial to the learning process because they really had to think about the structure of their own home and what they wanted their stick home to look like. That’s how this activity builds confidence and creativity.
Time to pop outside with the kids and collect a whole bunch of branches for your stick house!
Next challenge? Create a maze using sticks!
Great!!!
Thanks Margaret xx