Teepee

There is no better team than Team Family! You can encourage team building activities by engaging your family in a goal to accomplish together.

Clint and Brandon getting the poles for the teepee. Emily and Hannah rode in the truck to watch the choosing, cutting and then the moving of the poles.

The middles enjoyed trimming the limbs.
Six year old Bethany did an entire tree by herself!
The boys really got into it! After the limbs were off, they chopped through two trees!

Clint deciding which parts he'll use for the 16' lengths. After he cut them, he had us help him put all of the poles on top of each other. Then, because we were concerned the teepee would fall on our children, he drilled holes and threaded them together with a cable. We wrapped wire around the outside for additional support.

While we kept everyone else at a safe distance, it took the two teens and us parents to raise the poles and then maneuver them into place. Clint further braced the frame with some extra wood we had around. That made it much stronger and safer for our rough and tumble children. We wrapped it with two brown 20x18 tarps and plan to let each person paint Native American symbols on it.

This project cost us only $30 for the two tarps, $5 for the rope we attached the tarps with and one afternoon of family time. In return, we had another opportunity to work and play together by accomplishing a goal with lasting benefits. Every time the children see the teepee in the yard, they will think about how we accomplished it by working together.

We designed our own teepee, but there are plenty of plans on the internet you can use in constructing your own. You can also develop a lesson plan to go along with the design and construction, but our family built ours just for fun.