How to Build a Garden Play Teepee

Garden teepee created by a child

The garden teepee is fun to make with your kids. Some kids would rather build their own teepees since this is such a simple project. Make it a team challenge and provide enough raw materials for a few teams to build one. It is a good way to teach them some very simple building skills using natural resources. The garden play teepee is a fun place for imaginative play once it is built.

Things You'll Need

• Long thin branches
• Rope or string
• Lightweight fabric large enough to wrap around the teepee (optional)

Instructions

1. Cut or gather pieces of long thin branches at least 5 to 6 feet long. Plan this ahead of time when you know people are pruning their trees and ask them to save a bunch of the branches for your project if you don’t have trees of your own, or gather them on a nature excursion. You need 8 to 20 branch pieces for each teepee.

2. Begin to stand the pieces up by leaning them against each other while leaving space for the open living area in the middle of the teepee. It will look like an upside down cone of sorts. Make sure you leave an opening on one side. That will be the front door entrance to the teepee.

3. Intertwine the top ends together while the bottom is fanned out. Then take pieces of rope or string and begin winding them in and out and around the gathered top ends of the teepee. You are securing the ends of the branch pieces together so the teepee will stay in one piece. This is basically the only thing holding the structure together, so you want to make sure it is securely tied.

4. Test the structure. Try lifting the teepee up from the top gathered section, just a few inches off the ground and make sure it holds together as one solid piece. If it doesn’t, then put it back together and try retying it. It has to be able to hold up to slight brushing against it when kids climb in and out of the front opening.

5. Cover the teepee with an old sheet or some fabric if you want a more enclosed play area. If you do cover it, don’t use anything too heavy or anything that might get ruined being used for outdoor play.

Tips & Warnings

• If you don't have long branches, you can tie shorter ones together to create one long one. If you do thsi as a challenge for older kids, just give them the ropes and the pieces and what they are supposed to make and see how they solve an additional problem on theri own.

• Give them a time limit and see what they come up with in that time.