You never appreciate your parents more than when you have your own set of ankle-biters, by which I mean your lovely child or children, depending on your luck. And in what must have been a rapid downward spiral, you realized that your Superman tent that you held as a prized possession and had put up every weekend must have required a lot of acrobatic bending and Olympic-level coordination skills from your parent’s side.
But the joy on your kid’s face and the fact that it would have their undivided attention for the next several hours make the construction of a small childrens’ teepee so worth it.
So, grab hold of an old blanket, some needles, glue, and thread, and let me walk you through the process of building up a modest small tent house for kids.
How to choose best tent for the kid?
So now that you’ve decided that you will construct a miniature tent for your little ones, there are two options to choose from.
Open your laptop, look up teepees online, click on the economically sturdy-looking one with good reviews and ratings, and wait for it to deliver. And when it finally reaches your doorstep, put it together using the painstakingly crafted and picturized instruction manual that accompanies the tent. However, this option requires several dozens of dollars to exit your wallet.
The alternative is to get straight to DIY mode. If you’ve got neighbor kids who are into artsy stuff, you could consider bribing them to get your teepee. Otherwise, it’s sewing time. However, you could use this as a bonding and learning experience, allowing your children to participate in making their tepee.
The Building Process
The first step in the building of a tent consists of the following steps:
- Drill holes into a few wooden dowels
- String them together using a solid rope
- Avoid splinters by sanding over the holes
- Thread the dowels together while laying them flat
- Knot them in securely
- Do a little math to arrange them in the perfect teepee shape.
This would now give you the skeleton of the teepee. And if this is the extent of work you are willing to engage in, just drop down a huge piece of fabric on top, cut out the part required for the dowels to poke through, and you’ve got a wonderful homemade teepee for children.
However, you could also tap into your inner strength and sew a customized tent that adds a professional touch to the whole outlook by cutting and stitching a few fabric parts. While it may seem inconsequential to the kids, the difference is monumental from a much older perspective.
- Measure the width, bottom, and height of the dowels.
- Leave a little extra room for seam adjustments in your cloth
- The number of panels equals the number of dowels. Ideally, there exist five wooden dowels.
- Sew and hem the panels, right side, top, and bottom, respectively
- The dowel slits need to be sewn having the right sides of the panel facing in
- Add other decorations!
Though we’ve mentioned the availability of teepees online, it would be a much more memorable activity to make them alongside your little ones. Happy tenting!