I married a boy scout.

And then I birthed two boy scouts (well, not immediately – thankfully – but they have grown into them)

So now I have a backyard FULL of incredible outdoor forts tied together with boy scout knots that I cannot take apart. Which I think is kind of the idea of the crazy sturdy knots — hurricane and Mama proof.

As much as I tease this hubby of mine about his boy scout-edness, he did teach the kids some great skills, and came up with some great outdoor fort ideas, so I thought I would share the way he tied the sticks together, which truly makes a huge difference.

My forts tend to fall down rather quickly.

When I would use the twine to tie the sticks together, I would just take 3 sticks, wrap the twine around and knot.  Which did serve our purpose of a temporary play fort, but it wasn’t very sturdy.

To make a very sturdy fort out of sticks, here is the trick:

Take three big sticks and place them side by side.  Take some twine and weave it between the sticks, under-over-under, around, over-under-over, around and so on.  Make sense?  Do this weaving a bunch of times.  When you are done, wrap the twine in between two of the sticks and knot, and then in between the other two sticks and knot.  Spread the sticks out to form a triangular pyramid shape – or a teepee like structure – and you are set!

We have been doing this for a very, very long time – check out these ideas we did in our old backyard years ago:

We made a structure just like this, wrapped a sheet around, placed some books inside, and made it a little reading cozy fort the boys.

Since it was used in this way for all of 2 minutes, we decided to make it into a fort more to their liking.  Sam was the inventor of this fort, and Madeline did all of the tying herself.  They made two teepee forts, and attached a sturdy stick across the top.  This ended up being a kinda-fort, kinda-climber, and a huge hit.

And these boys really put it to the test.  A sheet was popped on top for awhile, but mostly just for a snack break.

I really like this way to make outdoor forts for kids.  It is simple and open ended letting all of that wonderful creativity shine through.

There is really no better way to enjoy the summer than outside playing with my boy scouts. I hope you are having a lovely summer too.

Thank you so much for reading friends!

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