Discuss with the children different types of housing used by Native Americans. Make sure to incorporate wigwams, longhouses, lodges and tepees. Then do the following activity to help children understand more about how tepees were built.
To shorten the duration of this activity, make each frame and tepee template beforehand. Collect four straight twigs per tepee, each twig being around one foot long. Bind the four twigs together at the top with yarn, twine or a rubber band. Adjust the twigs so they form a tepee shape. Trace the outline of the tepee onto a sheet of scrap paper and cut out the triangle. This will be your template. Open a large, brown paper bag along the seams. Trace the triangle tepee template four times with long sides touching. Cut out this polygon. Each child will need one frame and one tepee cover.
The children will draw and decorate their tepee using markers or paint. Fold the tepee along each pencil line and tape edges together. Cut the top off the tepee so the twigs will come through and slide the tepee cover over the twigs. Tape each twig to a fold line and the tepee is complete.
Follow My Leader is popular game among many Indian tribes. Players sing or chant "Follow my leader, wherever he goes. What he'll do next, nobody knows" while following the person chosen as the leader. All the children in the game must go where the leader goes, dance like he dances and move like he moves -- all to the rhythm of the song or chant. After a few minutes a new leader can be chosen, and the game begins again.
Other games such as Corn Cob Darts, Guessing Game and Bowl Game are common American Indian games that are simple enough for preschoolers to play. These games can be found at the Hummingbird Educational Resources website.
There are a variety of books for preschoolers about American Indians. Since Thanksgiving is a popular time to teach about Native Americans, the book "Squanto and the First Thanksgiving" by Theresa Celsi will teach young children how the Wampanoag Indians helped teach the Pilgrims how to survive in Plymouth colony.
Another good choice is "The Great Ballgame" by Joseph Bruchac. This story from the Muskogee indian tribe, explains why birds fly south for winter. "Grandmother's Pigeon" by Louise Erdrich and "A Promise is A Promise" by Robert Munsch are other popular choices to read aloud.
This activity combines cooking and art skills. You will need white bread, food coloring and milk. Make different colors of "paint" by mixing several drops of food coloring into small containers of milk. Instruct the children to paint Native American symbols onto their bread with a clean paintbrush dipped into the colored milk. As each child finishes, help them place the bread into a toaster. Once toasted, the colors will become more vivid and the child can then eat his masterpiece!
American Indians created the first canoes. Make cucumber "canoes" by cutting cucumber in half length-wise. Hollow out each half. Mix chopped carrots, tomatoes and radishes with a little yogurt and lemon juice. Have the children fill their "canoes" with the mixture and enjoy a fun, healthy snack.