Let’s be honest, we’ve all been here before. Making an indoor hut is a fairly common occurrence for kids play and most dads will have lost enthusiasm for it post lockdown. Hopefully the ideas below can reinvigorate the old past time into something worth remembering. 

Options 1:

Prepare for the hut building exercise with a planned ‘supply run’. You don’t have to buy much, but doing a small shop for essential items can help get your kids into the mood and make the excersie way more enjoyable. Stop by Mitre 10 or Happy Coins and by some cheap string and a bag of marshmallows. Use the string to set up a network of various sheet holders and take the hut to the next level. Follow this with a ‘camp fire’  to toast marshmallows on. (You can quite easily toast marshmallows over a candle or a toaster if you want the indoor experience to level up). Don’t leave you kids to do this alone!

Option 2: 
Do the temporary hut option outside. Pile some blankets and a fold down clothes line (amongst other things like toys and pillows or a board game) into your car and go set up a hut at the nearest park or beach. Grab some chips on the way and turn you hut into a mini picnic adventure. You don’t need a tent to briefly camp at the park – just use stuff lying around the house!

Option 3: (messy option)

Make an outdoor hut inside. If you’ve got a garage or just keen to get a bit wild then grab a wheelbarrow and got collect sticks and fens and branches and bring them indoors! From here you’ve got plenty of scope to build something highly entertaining with your kids with a mixture of nature and furniture. Once you’re done make sure you do something in the hut with your kids before leaving them to play by themselves, like hot chocolate or lunch or a game.

Tips:

With all of the set up and construction make sure you don’t take over the exercise. Our kids need to have as much input as they can to really enjoy the process – and we need to make sure that we spend time enjoying it with them. Don’t leave once it is done, stay involved.