Native American Unit Crafts

Share away! 😍

It has been quite a while since Snowflake finished her unit studying Native Americans but I hadn’t posted some of our fun from that unit. It has been 3-4 months since she finished this and I don’t have a great memory so I can’t remember if all of these were done in 1 unit or if some they were done between 2 units. We are using Moving Beyond the Page and she is in their 8-10 curriculum. In the first concept we were studying Interdependence. There are 3 units per concept, in this concept she read The Little House in the Big Woods while studying dirt and plants, The Sign of the Beaver while learning about Native Americans, and Native American Animal Stories while studying ecosystems and ecology. I’m pretty sure these were done during our time reading The Sign of the Beaver but it is possible that some were done while we were reading Native American Animal Stories. With better late than never, here are some of the crafty things she got to do during this unit.

A story in hieroglyphics by Snowflake

I thought this was a neat idea. Simply take a paper bag, crumple it up rip some edges a bit (I think we may have gotten it a little wet and let it dry) and voila, you have something resembling an old parchment or deer skin hid. Now I realize that it is a bit hard to see the story as the ‘hieroglyphics’ didn’t show up very well in the photograph above. Below is her pre-planning of the story. You can see the story better here.

Day 1: Cut out base from cardboard and draw things like the fire, beds, etc.

The base completed

Day 2: Adding the frame to hold the teepee cover

I think the directions for making this said to use sticks for this part. I know we could have gone and collected sticks, but I also knew they wouldn’t be even and it would make the process harder. I decided to use bamboo skewers that I was able to buy for $1. They were all the same length and straight, making the process easier. We used string to tie them together at the top. I am also fairly certain, for those of you reading this before doing the project, the directions said to use a hole punch to make the holes at the bottom. There were 2 problems with this. 1. Have you ever tried to use a hole punch on cardboard….ummmm not going to work, to hard. 2. The holes with a hole punch would have been huge for our skewers. I opted for the totally unsafe process of poking small holes with the point of scissors. I did not let Snowflake do this, for those of you worried about her safety and my mommy skills! 😉

Day 3: Working on adding the teepee cover

Sewing the Teepee cover on

Day 4: Adding hieroglyphics to the teepee

All done!

<A HREF=”https://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?rt=tf_cw&ServiceVersion=20070822&MarketPlace=US&ID=V20070822%2FUS%2Fthcossp-20%2F8010%2F7720ab85-601e-447c-9a7f-0e223e8af1be&Operation=NoScript”>Amazon.com Widgets</A>

Share away! 😍