Totem poles tell the story of a Native American family's heritage. Provide the following materials for each child to create his own totem pole: a potato chip can, two sheets of regular-sized brown construction paper, several small paper circles, glue and scissors. Have students draw faces on the circles for each member of his immediate family. Next, have them glue the circles onto the construction paper. Around each face, the students should draw an animal form that represents that family member. Glue the construction paper around the potato chip can. Using their scissors, have the students cut wings from their other sheet of paper and glue them onto their totem poles. Cut out a picture of each child's face to glue to the top of his totem pole.
Beans and corn were both very important to early Native American culture, and still remain vital today. Let your students practice sorting in math with these important crops. Cut multicolored or "Indian" corn from cobs. Give each child a cupful of kernels, and have her sort them into piles according to color. Provide each child with a cup of 15-bean mixture, and allow her to sort the beans by both color and size.
Native American tribes often created beautifully patterned beaded necklaces. Let your students practice crucial patterning skills by making their own beaded jewelry. Dye some penne pasta (noodles shaped like a tube) using food coloring and alcohol. Make at least five different colors. Allow the pasta to dry. Have each student create a pattern with the colored pasta by laying the noodles on the table. Once he has created a pattern, give each student a length of yarn to string his "beads" on.
This activity is great for working on color recognition. Many Native American tribes used feathers for decoration. Obtain eight to ten different colored feathers. Have your students sit in a circle. Lay the feathers in the center of the circle. Tell one child to hide her eyes. Take one of the feathers away. Ask the child to open her eyes and guess which color feather is missing.