🛶🌽🏹 Native American Cultures
I hope you enjoy the Native American Cultures Unit Study Lesson Plan! Here are some highlights:
Native American Cultures - Printable Book
Native American 3-Part Cards
The Wamponoag Way - Video
Tribes of the Indian Nation
Native American Word Search and ABC Sort
Native Bump Math Game
Harvest Ten Frames
Dream Catcher
Animal Hide Pictograph Stories
Beaded Maize
Corn Life Cycle Stem Craft and Printable Book
Native American History - Video
Native American Community - Sensory Play
How to Powwow Dance
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Enjoy! Tiff
🛶🌽🏹 Native American Culture
Native American Cultures
Introduce your students to the rich culture of the first Americans with this fun and engaging printable book. This unit features 8 culture areas in the U.S. with a few overview pages and then a page for each culture. Learn key vocabulary words, names of a few tribes and key facts about each cultural area. Great for handwriting and reading practice as students read and trace the words to create their book.
Native American 3 - Part Cards
These are probably my favorite resource I found for this unit. My girls love 3-Part or Nomenclature cards and always enjoy playing with them. We used the cards shown here, but there are three other sets of free cards: Native American Homes 3-Part Cards, Native American Indians in History, and Native American Indian Geographic Areas.
Indian Arts and Culture Museum Virtual Tours
Explore the vast collections of indigenous art in these immersive virtual tours by the Indian Arts and Culture Museum:
The Wamponoag Way
This was a great way to get a glimpse into the daily life of the Wampanoag tribe. Two young girls re-enact what life was like for the tribes years ago. They help cook, eat, play and do chores.
Want more videos like this? Check out this playlist.
English Language Arts
Tribes of the Indian Nation
There are over 500 recognized Native American tribes and each one is unique. To learn more about individual tribes, we used this resources as a read aloud. After we would read about a tribe I asked comprehension questions to see if my students understood the text.
This pack includes information about 16 tribes and a map of the different regions.
Native American Word Search and ABC Sort
By: Michaela Peterson - We Heart Edu
We really enjoyed this simple worksheet pack that includes a themed word search and helps practice alphabetizing. Great for practicing spelling of key unit vocabulary words.
This pack also includes a Native American writing sheet and 6 quote posters.
Reading Lessons
There are only two resources I like to make sure I include on each week’s lesson plan, Prodigies Music (below) and Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons. This book has thousands of 5 star reviews on Amazon for a reason. It’s an effective, no-prep way to teach reading. We are 40 or so lessons in and I can already see a huge difference, my daughter actually sounds out the words instead of guessing.
The lessons are short (15-20min), easy to grasp and sequential. The entire lesson is scripted and color coded so it’s fool proof, just read the words in pink. It also is designed for kids that don’t know their alphabet or letter sounds yet, so you can start right away. Their claim is that after completing all 100 lessons your child will be able to read at a 2nd grade level!
Math
Native Bump Math Game
This is a simple and easy math game. All you need are a pair of dice and two different colored markers. Great for practicing addition to 12. Just roll two dice and add them together. Then cover that number. After all the numbers are covered, the person with the most covered wins. Includes multiple game mat backgrounds.
Harvest Ten Frames
My girls absolutely love playing with this harvest activity. We used the egg carton ten frames to work on number pairs for ten. We used the erasers to form the equations in the egg cartons, then wrote them all on the white board to see the reversals and patterns. We even tried a few simple multiplication problems with the pea pods (3x2=6 and 3x3=9). Because my daughter could easily visualize the problem, it was a great introduction to the concept of multiplication.
Base: Boon Lawn Drying Rack and Egg Crates cut into ten frames
Supplies: Vegetable Japanese Puzzle Erasers, Craft Sticks, Green Pipe Cleaners, Glue Dots, and Green Markers.
Art and Music
Dream Catcher
This craft was definitely a favorite for my girls. We learned that Native Americans believed that the night air was filled with good and bad dreams. Mothers would hang dream catchers above their children’s bed to capture bad dreams and only allow good dreams to go through.
This tradition originated with the Objiwe tribe and is inspired by spiders, which is why many designs connect to the hoop in eight points.
To prep, cut a circle out of a thin paper plate. Then punch one hole on top, eight holes evenly spaced in the circle and three holes on the bottom.
First, paint the paper plate and let dry. Then tie yarn to one hole and string across the plate in diagonals. It doesn’t have to make a star pattern, but both of ours just came out that way. Then secure the end of the string to the last hole. Tie one string to the top to hand and three on the bottom. Decorate the three bottom strings with pony beads and finish with a feather. You can also include pony beads during the weaving part, which looks awesome!
Supplies: paper plate, paint, paint brushes, yarn, pony beads, feathers, hole puncher, scissors.
Animal Hide Pictograph Stories
Native Americans often painted deer and buffalo hides in order to communicate and record stories. A tribe’s history would be recorded and then painted onto an animal hide. These hides would often be passed down from generation to generation.
We took some old brown packing paper and crumpled it to look like animal skin. We then ripped it into animal hide shapes. Finally, we smoothed it out and drew pictographs from this great Native American symbols chart. Students were encouraged to tell a story with images that started in the center and spiraled outwards.
Supplies: brown craft paper or packing paper, sharpies or black markers, Native American symbols chart
Beaded Maize
Crafts that work on fine motor skills are always a winner for me. This was a no-prep craft that kept both of my girls busy.
Just fold three brown pipe cleaners in half and twist. Add your fall colored pony beads and then twist to close and your maize is ready to harvest!
Supplies: pony beads, pipe cleaners.
Prodigies Music
Do…Re…Mi…
We love Prodigies! Prodigies Music is simply an incredible curriculum for teaching music. Ages 2-5 is the critical time to develop a life-long sense of pitch. Their curriculum is designed to develop a sense of pitch with easy to use desk bells that don’t require any tuning. They also teach piano, recorder and ukulele. Their subscription includes everything you can think of 450+ videos, worksheets, free bell mats, sheet music all color coded so it’s super easy to learn. If you don’t have an instrument they have a bunch of rhythm focused content that doesn’t require an instrument.
They have a free trial and discounts for annual memberships! Great deal! You can even check out some of their videos for free on YouTube.
Science
Native American Salt Sticks
We loved learning about evaporation and Native American culture with this easy science experiment. We learned that Native Americans collected salt on sticks and carried the salt to areas that did not have salt (inland). They would secure the sticks upright in a shallow lagoon. When the salty ocean water evaporated, the salt crystallized on the sticks. The salted sticks were then wrapped into bundles to trade.
Corn Life Cycle STEM Craft + Book
We love STEM + Craft activities! Teach All About Corn with this fun Lift-the-Flap book. Your students will learn the parts of the corn plant, parts of an ear of corn and about what a crop is. Then they will love getting to choose their favorite corn foods to have for breakfast lunch or dinner.
Next, learn about the life cycle of a corn by sequencing the stages of the corn plant in the correct sequence in this folding STEM Craft.
Social Studies
Native American History
This is a great overview of the history of Native Americans. Learn about the major tribes like Cherokee, Apache, Cheyenne, Iroquois, and Navajo. And learn about different dwellings that were built based on a tribe’s needs: teepee, wigwam, pueblo, chikee and more.
Sensory Play
Native American Community - Sensory Play
Learn and play with this easy to set-up sensory activity. Just fill a bin with sand and add these beautiful Native American figurines.
Re-enact daily life by making trips to collect fresh water, cooking on an open fire, gathering food and hunting.
Filler: sand
Supplies: Safari Powhatan Toob, blue felt, moss pebbles, rocks.
Physical Education
How to Powwow Dance
This is an awesome authentic video by Deanne Hupfield of Temagami First Nation. She specializes in teaching Ojibwe cultures and traditions and she made this awesome video just for kids.
Learn about the significance of a regalia and how to do a basic powwow dance with this fun video.
Book List
Books We Love!
- Raven
- Native American History for Kids
- Who Were The First North Americans
- Children of the Earth and Sky
- I am Sacagawea (Ordinary People Change the World)
- The Rough-Face Girl (A Cinderella Story)
Don’t have the budget or space to get more books? The library has been pretty great for us so far, but they are sometimes out of the more popular books. One place that you can always count on to find great books is Epic Books! Try Epic Basic for FREE! You can find awesome read to me books for free. Unlimited plan includes access to 40,000+ books!
Know of any other awesome resources about Native American Culture? Please comment below!
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