Nothing sparks a child's imagination and creativity like building a great fort. Inside or outside, it can be lots of fun, as kids love crawling around in tiny spaces, acting out their adventures, or simply creating a space they can call their own. On dreary, rainy days, bringing this typically outdoor adventure indoors can fire new light in your child's eyes, as their imagination takes off. Not only is it great, creative fun, but this activity can also keep your little ones occupied for hours.

My sisters and I were very fond of building forts. I can't remember there ever being a time when we built ours outside. Since the four of us were all girls, our forts usually ended up more like a miniature house, rather than a fort, resulting in pretend "house" or "school", as opposed to "cowboys 'n Indians", so we figured it made more sense to keep it indoors anyway.

Our first goal was always to set up all eight dining room chairs as a perimeter for our fort. If only a couple of us were home, we would only use four chairs; sometimes only two. Our next task was to bug mom to pull out all the extra sheets from the closet, and bring them to the construction site. Then, we'd race to our bedrooms, and gather up all of our blankets and pillows, not forgetting our favorite dolls and teddy bears, and drag them down the hallway, dumping everything in the middle of the living room floor.

Once we had all our building materials in one place, construction began. We would drape the sheets over the dining chairs, carefully placing them so that they wouldn't slip off. Sometimes they would slip off anyway, and to remedy this, we'd simply grab a thick, heavy book from the bookcase, and lay it on top of the sheet, on top of the chair, to hold it in place. As the last bed sheet was being put on, we were careful not to over lap it with the first sheet, so that a perfect door would be left for coming and going.

We would always stake out our spot inside the fort. Then, through the door would go all our dolls and teddies, one by one. Each would have their own place in our own corner of the fort, along with a spot for ourselves, marked by our pillow. Once the playthings were settled in, back down the hallway we'd go, stopping in our rooms to grab the "lookout" toys. We would place all our not-so-favorite toys on the chairs on the outside of the fort to keep a lookout for the ones inside, just in case there was trouble.

And then the fun began. For hours we'd play, pretending this and that, letting our imaginations run wild. But the most fun nights of all, were the nights mom sighed at our pleas, finally gave her approval for a sleepover night for all four of us together in our great big fort!

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