Fort Magic Construction Building set Review
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Disclosure: I was not compensated for this review. I received the product below. All opinions are my own.
Over the past few years I have been offered several opportunities to review different brands of kids “fort” kits and to be honest I never thought it would be something I was interested in so I always politely turned them down. My kids did just fine at using blankets and chairs to build their forts! (even though it was always quite the ordeal to have to tear down and put away!) But when Fort Magic offered me the opportunity to review their product I agreed after checking into their brand a little more. The retail price runs just under $200 but I noticed that they had 5 out of 5 stars on Amazon which made me look a little closer! After spending almost a month using this set already it’s an amazing product and certainly worth the price! Not to mention there is virtually no limit on what you can do with this set! PLUS they do offer a 30 day money back guarantee if you aren’t satisfied. Warning – after viewing our photos you may find yourself wanting a Fort Magic set!
Personally, I fell in love with this life-sized teepee that we built! (yes – you can build MORE than just the traditional “forts”!) It was almost too tall for my living room! I KNEW this would be awesome not only for our school Thanksgiving plays with the students but also for fun at home. The Fort Magic set comes with little plastic “clips” so that you can attach any fabric, blanket, bed sheets, etc to your creation so it’s really versatile for whatever you have on hand to use. I decided to run to our local thrift store to buy fabric for our teepee since it was so big!
The kids & I came home and began to research some Cherokee symbols since we have Cherokee in our family and used fabric markers to draw Native American symbols onto our teepee. It was a pretty awesome family project! Â Ok – enough about our totally AWESOME teepee – let me tell you what Fort Magic actually is and how it works!
Fort Magic is a construction set that includes 165 straight and curved “sticks” of various sizes, 87 connector pieces in different sizes, and 130 fabric “clips” for a total of 382 total pieces. It also includes a very high quality durable bag to store all of your pieces inside of. All of the pieces are just top notch quality and very sturdy! These pieces are not something that will break easily. The Fort Magic set also came with a beautiful laminated book of designs to create which were very simple to follow. Of course you can build anything with this set – not just the designs included in the book!! However I absolutely LOVED the book because it is virtually indestructible and has a very wide variety of things to build such as an airplane, the teepee, submarine, car, house, maze, mansion, alien, rocketship, etc.
My boys – ages 6 and 4, were SO pysched to get started building! My 6 year old had no problem building this set with his daddy. In fact you’ll see later below that my 6 year old actually came up with his own creations completely built by himself! One thing to note – before beginning your construction you will need a LOT of room!! Our living room isn’t that large and some of these sets took up a huge chunk of it! Here is a quick shot of some of the designs and what it looks like inside of the included book for ideas:
This car was the first thing that my youngest asked us to build! It has a steering wheel that actually turns and all 4 wheels on the bottom turn too! My kids “rode” it through the house!! You can imagine the possibilities of how to use this set for plays and parties! The great thing about the included fabric clips is that you can very very easily attach any type of fabric or blanket into your creation. Â You can use old sheets you already have or buy coordinated fabric for your creation! Or like we did for our teepee you can paint something onto your fabric for a more intricate design!
Here is our alien that we built from the design book! Below you can see a screenshot of the alien in the book as well as the rocketships you can build with it:
And this maze box was 100% created by my 6 year old son. Needless to say I was pretty surprised and impressed when I found him building this!! He even set all of the blankets up himself!
This mansion was our first creation and it is a HUGE one! We actually had to rearrange furniture in our small living room to get this set to fit! In fact it’s so large that in the “room” you see of the mansion on the left all of the adults could stand up straight inside of there! This monster took a LOT of blankets to cover!! 🙂 One day we’ll buy enough fabric to create something coordinated for this – it’s SO cool!
Here’s just another few photos of the mansion covered with about as many blankets as I could find at the time! We left this up for a whole week and only took it down so that I could create some more designs for this review. The kids absolutely went nuts over it!
Since the kids liked hiding under things so much we then built this tent for them to watch TV and read books under! It was surprisingly roomy and had plenty of room in there for at least 4-5 kids.
And of course to go with our teepee we needed a horse!! My 6 year old helped me to create this and it was a fantastic project for his motor skills because he sat with me for hours and tied on black yarn for the horse mane and tail!
As you can see in my photos the Fort Magic set does not come with fabric but you can use blankets and sheets at home, or of course buy fabric to match. I’ve been told that later this year we might be seeing some pre-made fabric swatches for sale so keep an eye out for that! Overall this set is AWESOME and you’ll definitely get your money’s worth out of it. This is one of those things that will last through your kid’s entire childhood and beyond if you care for it appropriately. You are really bound only by your own imagination. You can create your own lemonade stand, puppet theatre, train station, igloo, and anything else that you can dream up! You can read other people’s reviews and see pictures of their creations here. And here’s the link to buy your own Fort Magic set!
Here are a few other creative ideas to use this set for:
photography props / backgrounds
school skits and plays (trees, buildings, walls, etc)
hanging mobiles from
outdoor play and activities
photo ops
GIVEAWAY
I am SO excited that Fort Magic has offered a construction set to give away for one of my readers!! This giveaway is open to US AND Canada only. Just fill out the Rafflecopter form below which will end on April 2, 2014 at midnight. Winner will have 48 hours to claim prize before a new winner is chosen.
My kids would absolutely love these, any of them really but the Mansion really stands out! Love it!
My fave design is the Airplane so cute
This would beso cool in my elementary school library. Love the car!
My favorite part of this product is the endless possibilities!
I have to say that the submarine and the car are my two favourites. This would be awesome to use as a part of a science uit about structures!
The castle I love castles and so do my kids.
Looks great for my two boys!
I want to make your teepee now but I also love the pirate ship design.
I love the mini plane fort
My Son and Daughter are really into building forts now…It would be fun to build the yellow submarine since we are HUGE Beatles fans!
My kids would love the submarine!
My kids would love the submarine! I would love to see what they would build with their own imaginations!
What a fun, creative set! I love them all!
Looks like fun
My favorite style is the tepee! But any of them would work great in my classroom for a reading area and could even change it up to match a theme.
I would love to have this for my classroom!!!!
I am IN LOVE with the pirate ship!!! My firsties would LOVE it too! I am in awe of all the cool creations!
And can you imagine reading a story and creating a “building” or “transportation” related to the story for the kiddos to enjoy. WOW!
I love the space fort!! So cool!
I love the rocket ship design!!
These would be fabulous for my dramatic play center!
I love the castle! My boys would flip over this set!
I would love this for our sensory seeking son!
Never seen this before. So many things to do with it.
I would love this for my two young boys then could put it to use in my kindergarten classroom!!!!!!
So so cute!
I love the rocket ship!
Super cute… Hope I win 🙂
Wow this would be great for my classroom in the break area!
I love the canoe! That would make a fun reading center in my future classroom!
I like them all, but the castle would be fun to build.
I like them all, but the castle and rocket would be fun to build.
I love that the forts include the whole family. I love the castle, but they are all incredible.
LOVE the submarine design – so much creativity could happen with that!
I love the versatility of the product. I would love to dream up new and exciting things to make with my step-daughter.
I love the rocketship and alien buddy!
My grandson would love this set when he gets a bit older. The horse is great.
My 7 year old twins LOVE to make forts in the living room. FortMagic would be fantastic for them, since they could make it into whatever they want. Very cool!
I really want to build the riverboat and paddle!! What an awesome toy!!
I love that it’s like a giant lifesize set of K’nex! My girls would love this, though they are reaching the age of only asking for electronis and video games. This product looks amazing!
I like the spaceship one. We love talking and learning about the planets. It’s be perfect for us.
The mansion. But really, this whole concept is just amazing!!
Love that you can be creative…can even do tunnels, fun!
Great giveaway! I wish I win this thing. My kids will love it 🙂
I like the Teepee; I think it would be a fun way to encourage reading during the Daily 5.
Would love to try the car and airplane in school for different events.
I really love the imagination for the children. There needs to be more of this type of play.
That teepee looks awesome! I love all the possibilities:)
I love the to tepee
I love the pirate ship!!!
Omgoodness what a great and fun toy 🙂
I just love the open endedness of this! My favorite design is probably the race car.
Just can’t pick my favorite. But I love the versatility!
Oo, I love the playhouse…and the Pirate Ship! My kids would so love this.
We love the castle and the tunnels.
Debbie jackson http://pinterest.com/jacksondeb/
I like the space cruisers
Love the fact that it has clips for material to hold them on! Definitely improves the fort making 😉
Love them all but if I am choosing my absolute favorite…the airplane is my favorite.
I like the castle set
Love just the simple fort with the tunnel
We would definitely make the castle and rocket ship!
These are amazing! I like the Fort Magic Tunnel and Fort.
I love how versatile this product is. I really like that there are curved pieces.
I love the submarine!
I love that it comes with so many pieces and designs to spark my kids own imagination! Would love to win this. Thanks.
The race car has to be my favorite although I think my son would be mad that he can’t actually race in it.
I like the Fort Magic Pirate Ship.
I like the Rocket Ship Design.
Oh I love how you did the TeePee! So cute!!! I visited Fort Magic and really love all the different designs you can make! I learned that they also have patterns on there site! Carter would love to build the Submarine first!
My son would love the pirate ship or the rocket ship design. I can see hours of fun!
I learned a lot from reading all of the customer reviews & looking at all of the photos! They had such wonderful ideas!
I absolutely love the Fort Magic Playhouse, how fun!!!
I love the Fort Magic Castle! These are so neat!!
love the castles
My kids would love the Fort Magic!!!
Love the Mansion, the space cruisers, the canoe, the rocketship…..I could go on! Love’em all!
Like the fabric clips and curved pieces. Different than other types of fort sets I have seen. My four boys would love this.
One of my fave designs is the rocket. (although my students would want to make everything!)
OMG what an amazing invention to enrich our childrens imagination. My son would love the rocket ship
I love the submarine!
My grandson would love any of the Forts, and would have a blast, sure hoping to win!! Thanks!!
Wow! girls, boys and anyone can have fun with so many options to build. Absolutely great for imaginations to flow.I love the space designs but my kids would love the teepee.
We love the castle fort!!
I love the pirate ship and submarine designs. My girls would have so much fun with this!
My children would love the pirate ship!
Castles and dreams and far away things,
Puppets and pets and never to forget
Travels, scenes, monsters and others not so tragic
Is where imagination takes you with Fort Magic!
There are so many wonderful designs but I think my son would enjoy the spaceship the most!!
My niece would love the castle option!
How cool! Never heard of it before visiting your site. Love the many options. Here’s hoping this single mom can build all the coolness especially the Pirates ship.
My little guy would LOVE the pirate ship!
My son would love the rocket ship and alien. And the castle. Actually he would love them all!
My son would love the pirate ship! I would love to set this up as a reading area in my classroom too!
I LOVE the car. My son and daughter both love to build. We currently have a set of building materials that are straws but it is not sturdy enough for all of my 4 year old son’s projects. I would love something sturdier that we could build as a family and then they could both actually play in.
there is a patent on the design
What a great item this is. i would love to use this in the classroom to help liven up history. How much fun would it be to create George Washington’s boat and cross the Delaware River?! To make tee pees and try to negotiate with Indians for land and furs. We could live history and not just read about it. The canoe paddle and horse would create so much excitement. I am very excited about these ideas.
I really like the pirate ship design!