native american

Tlingit Art Project

These igloos are not only fun to build, they are sweet to the taste as well! the time to build a layer and give the igloo time to dry. the exact way to build an igloo, but my children had a blast. Older children can certainly try to use the methods explained in the book, and the video.

Materials:

Construction Paper (variety of colors)
Scissors
Cardstock Paper (for background)
Glue

Suggested Resources for a Unit Study:

Art Project Tutorial:

Whale Template

Print up this whale template on cardstock and cut out.

View Resource

Step 1

Stack your colored paper together and cut out in the shape of your animal. We are using the shape of a whale.

Step 2

Keeping all of your paper stacked together, slowly cut your shape into different pieces.

Step 3

You can cut your shapes any way you like. If your working with younger children, you can do this beforehand and just have the pieces ready for them.

Step 4

Once you have your animal cut into the different pieces, you want to keep them stacked together just a bit so you can easily put your puzzle back together.

Step 5

Using your animal template draw the same shape onto a piece of white paper

Step 6

Slowly start adding your pieces on top of colors.

Step 7

When ready, fill your animal with glue and put your pieces on alternating the colors.

All Done

You now have a beautiful representation of Tlingit art! These look great with black construction paper frames!

Sugar Cube Igloo

September 28, 2010 By Valerie Mcclintick Leave a Comment

We are wrapping up our studies on the Inuit tribes of North America with a fun sugar cube igloo:

For this project we watched this dated, but informative video on “How to build an igloo” and paired our craft with this fantastic early reader:

A Look Inside an Igloo

The kids had a blast with this project, as we added a layer of cubes every day to allow them time to dry.

We also spent some time exploring the fantastic videos on Sila. My children were just fascinated by these, so far they’ve seen the building of an igloo, the hunting of a caribou, and even a church service with a lesson on Moses. I haven’t seen them all so I’d recommend watching them on your own first to decide, as often with Native American culture you can get into spiritual discussions.

This week we also reviewed what we know about Arctic animals with this fun Arctic Animals File Folder Game!

Stay tuned for more Native American Crafts as we move on to the Tlingit tribes!

Soapstone Sculpture

September 23, 2010 By Valerie Mcclintick 2 Comments

Yesterday for art we enchanced our plain white clay with an ancient Inuit technique:

*snicker

Black Pepper really did add some texture to our clay, and reminded me of the appearance of soapstone:

(I would have put more in, but eyes were starting to water)

We paired this craft with the book Missuk’s Snow Geese, which is about a little girl who wants to learn from her father, how to carve into soapstone.

My kiddos were a bit to young to do the traditional carving technique (we’ll be picking up bars of soap for this later in the week!) so we just molded our clay into shapes:

This was Bubba’s “Shark”….made me giggle how much it looks like a whale, but if he say’s it’s a shark….it’s a shark!

Inuit Snow Goggles Craft

September 22, 2010 By Valerie Mcclintick Leave a Comment

Awesome Book

+ Awesome Craft

= Hours of Pretend Play!

My house is filled with little (blond) Inuit children making “igloos’ from my couch cushions!

Make your own? Here’s the Step By Step with a printable template!

Arctic Watercolor

September 16, 2010 By Valerie Mcclintick Leave a Comment

We will be lapbooking all of our fun Arctic learning, so this week the kids made some beautiful watercolor artwork, inspired by the wonderful illustrations in this book:

“My Arctic 1,2,3”

We loved this book because a new animal is introduced for each page, and below the pictures children can see how the animals names are written in traditional Inukitut. At the back of the book there is a section where the author discusses his childhood encounters with each animal, while growing up in the Arctic. Bubba especially loved this part of the book, hearing about a young boy who had so many fantastic adventures.

My kiddos picked their favorite animal of the group and used a combination of watercolor, colored pencils, and pastels to complete their drawings.

We cut down the edges of the paintings, and glued them to our lapbooks for cover art. I then helped the children write the name of the animal in Inukitut next to their paintings:

If you can’t tell, Sissy(7) did “Killer Whales”, and Bubba(4) did “Arctic Char” (which are fish)

I think they turned out beautiful and they are super excited to fill them up with everything they are learning!

Here is a link to a tutorial with discussion questions for using this craft in your classroom.

Stay tuned for more Arctic Fun!

Puffy Polar Bear

September 14, 2010 By Valerie Mcclintick 7 Comments

We’re starting up our Homechool year learning about the Inuit tribes of North America!

My kiddos have been so excited to learn about the Eskimos, and all the amazing creatures of the arctic.

We’re using Evan-Moor History Pockets as a basic guide for our studies on Native Americans

As well as Draw, Write, Now Book 4 (Animals of the Arctic)

And of course a slew of library books (Click Here for our picks)

We’ve already kicked off our year of learning so we’ve got some great projects to share with you!

Starting off with these fun Puffy Polar Bears:

We’ve even included a recipe for making your own Puffy Paint, and Texture Paint here!!

Very Simple, but quite beautiful results!

Stay tuned for more Arctic Fun!!!

(Psst….You did see our adorable Eskimo File Folder Game didn’t you?)