Native American Unit Activities

Teaching US History was one of the things I enjoyed the most. It was just so much fun coming up with creative, hands-on ways to teach each fact. We dressed up, did arts and crafts, created skits, and played a ton of games.

One thing that was not so much fun was the total lack of curriculum. We had a textbook that was written on a high school reading level. For 5th graders. It included chapters on concepts such as transcendentalism and utopian societies. Now don't get me wrong, I firmly believe that students should be exposed to higher level thinking and ideas that may not necessarily be on the end-of-year test, but I drew the line at words that were over 16 letters long.

To compensate for our lack of literature on US History, we purchased a few supplemental items...but mostly it was left up to me to create the activities that went along with each lesson. While this was a massively huge amount of work initially, it ended up resulting in a year full of hands-on, engaging activities that were perfectly tailored to our classroom.

A few things we did that year:

• Colonial Costume Day
• Who Am I? Game
• Native American Museum
• The Hall of Fame 
• Create-Your-Own-Store
• Created and voted on new school laws (which usually got the VETO stamp from President Principal) ;) 
• North v. South Great Debate

I've taken these teacher-create activities and created US History packs that are grouped by unit.

The one I'd like to share with you today is the Native American Unit:

Native American Unit

Product Description

Fun & Creative Native American activities to supplement your unit!

Includes: 
- Unit Project and Presentation
- Concentration Game
- Create-Your-Own Scrapbook activity 
- Native American Chart (students draw pictures)
- Vocabulary Quiz
- General Native American Quiz. 

The current tribes used are Inuit, Kwakiutl, Sioux, Iroquois, and Pueblo, but they can be changed to match the tribes you teach. 
All pages can be edited to fit your state's standards. Pages are currently aligned with VA Standards of Learning.

To see more reviews or to purchase this product, visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store or my Teacher's Notebook store.

Some Comments from a TeachersPayTeachers Customers:

JodiEZ said:

I live in PA, so we are studying the Algonquains and the Iroquois. However, I am tweaking this project to suit those tribes. My 4th grade students are getting ready to create their Native American Museum and are so excited. Hoping for quality work!!!!

Aura53 said:

If you cant get ideas from this resource, it doesnt exist.

mclarke5 said:

This is a wonderful Unit. I will use it for many years to come!!

Other social studies resources you might be interested in:

       

      

To find out more about this product, you can visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store or my Teacher's Notebook store.