Need Some Shade TeePee

You need:

• an old full or queen sized sheet, cut into equal sized flat top triangles (I guess technically, that's a trapezoid).
• 4 pieces of bamboo, 5 feet or longer is best. We cut ours down in our yard, but you can buy bamboo at hardware stores and nurseries. Any long straightish sticks will do though.
  
• Twine and a little needle and thread
• and... sunshine on a hot day

Lay your bamboo out in a row, tie a knot around the first piece, and then weave it over and under, back and forth, for about 4 layers. Make it nice and tight. Wait till you stand it up and spread the sticks out in a square to tie it, so you can tighten it after the sticks are in place.

Lay out the pieces of fabric and decorate them. We used some homemade yellow dye (tumeric, water, and vinegar), in a little mustard squirt bottle. You could do anything here, fabric paint, berry smashing, coffee or tea dipping, tie dye, etc. It all depends on the age of the children involved. Mine are young and have short attention spans, so I opted for a quick and easy decorating job.

After the pieces are decorated and dried, it's time to sew them together. If you're not a sewer, fabric glue would work. If your kiddos know how to sew, they can help. The lines are straight and easy on this, so if you want to just have them step on the pedal, mine enjoy that. Sew right sides together, sewing the last side just about 10 inches down from the top. Turn it right side out and put over your standing up frame. Hand sew the top part of the door together around one pole. Line the seams up with the other poles, adjusting poles as needed, and hand sew at the top and bottom of of each pole. Put a little piece of twine through the bottom corner of your door so they can tie it shut if they want. Now have fun.