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Explore your World #12
Explore Native American Cultures!: With 25 Great Projects
Explore Native American Cultures! with 25 Great Projects introduces readers to seven main Native American cultural regions, from the northeast woodlands to the Northwest tribes. It encourages readers to investigate the daily activities—including the rituals, beliefs, and longstanding traditions—of America’s First People. Where did they live? How did they learn to survive and build thriving communities? This book also investigates the negative impact European explorers and settlers had on Native Americans, giving readers a glimpse into the complicated history of Native Americans.
Readers will enjoy the fascinating stories about America’s First People as leaders, inventors, diplomats, and artists. To enrich the historical information, hands-on activities bring to life each region’s traditions, including region-specific festivals, technology, and art. Readers can learn Native American sign language and create a salt dough map of the Native American regions. Each project is outlined with clear step-by-step instructions and diagrams, and requires minimal adult supervision.
Readers will enjoy the fascinating stories about America’s First People as leaders, inventors, diplomats, and artists. To enrich the historical information, hands-on activities bring to life each region’s traditions, including region-specific festivals, technology, and art. Readers can learn Native American sign language and create a salt dough map of the Native American regions. Each project is outlined with clear step-by-step instructions and diagrams, and requires minimal adult supervision.
- GenresHistory
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
About the author
Anita Yasuda
218 books16 followersAuthor of UP, UP, EVER UP: JUNKO TABEI'S PIONEERING EVEREST CLIMB, illustrated by Yuko Shimizu (Clarion, 2024)- a Junior Library Guild Gold Selection, DIWALI: A FESTIVAL OF LIGHT, illustrated by Darshika Varma (Penguin Random House, 2024), and BOLLYWOOD BEAT, illustrated by Devika Oza (Kids Can Press, 2026), as well as many other children's books. Represented by Lori Steel of SteelWorks Literary.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 12, 2019
I picked up this book because of the interactive project-based learning that can take place with the information this text provides. It is good for elementary aged children and I think it could be used with various levels of help through all grades. As I went through the book reading about the different projects and the information on the tribal history behind the items in the project I liked the book even more because it brought a little bit from many of the cultures and compared them to what happens in our homes today or how the article could be used. The book discusses different tribal traditions and ceremonies and talks about whether or not these cultural events are still happening today. Overall this is a handy little project book for opening up a conversations and investigating the native American culture further especially since it questions whether they tribes are still around and if their native traditions are still being followed it even talks about language and how some of our names of things come from the tribal names which could lead to a conversation about their individual languages of each tribe and how some of the languages have been lost while others are using technology to reteach their members the old language.
March 6, 2020
This is a wonderful book to introduce to young readers as a class project. Students will be able to take a glimpse of the lives of the first American People and learn how they lived, how they learned to survive and build thriving communities, and many more. I think this is a wonderful book to have in the classroom as an instructional piece.
December 10, 2022
This is a bad book. It should not be banned, but decent people will avoid it. It makes children ignorant.
This book has, as the final activity, a "Native American Cultures MadLib".
Think about that.
As a learning exercise, children are encouraged to make a literal joke out of Indigenous cultures.
That is not the only problem. Many of the crafts are profoundly disrespectful toward the cultures that are purportedly the subjects being learned about. "Make Your Own Katsina Doll"? Really? And how does a child learn anything real about Hopi culture by desecrating this tradition? "Make Your Own Totem Pole" out of marshmallows and graham crackers? No thanks.
That's not all. Open the book to the title page; there is an illustration showing stereotypical tipis along with a stereotypical birchbark canoe, Great Plains cultures mashed together with eastern Woodland cultures: your kids are already being misinformed.
Turn a couple pages, and we have an erratic and sketchy "Timeline" that starts off with "20,000 BCE" outdated information. Your kids are being misinformed.
Turn the page: an Introduction where "Hiawatha" is presented as Native American culture. The "Hiawatha" of American understanding is fake legend created by Longfellow. Your kids are being misinformed.
Turn a couple pages, and there - Surprise! - is the mandatory "Where Did Native Americans Come From" trope. Let me ask you: when have you opened a book about European culture, and the book asks "Where did European people come from?" And yet, this subject appears in almost every book about Indigenous America. Ask yourself why, Why do colonizers fret so much about Native American origins? It's an insidiously anti-Native trope. You should be ashamed. You are guilty for allowing this to continue. YOU should feel bad about yourself. Bad settler. Bad.
Look at the picture on this page: a cartoon of an actual bridge with stick figures jogging across the Bering Strait. Misleading beyond any allowances for artistic license, and an illustration of an outdated theory anyway.
Maybe it gets better. Turn the page. A craft activity! Make a relief map of the continental landforms! Cool . . . wait, not the continent, just the 48 contiguous states of the U.S.
The familiar outline is in no way Indigenous! Your kids are being misinformed.
Turn the page, and there's some actual information.
Followed by those denigrating activities. And then the unbelievably offensive MadLib.
Buy this book if you want to misinform -- dare I say disinform? -- your children, demean Native American cultures, and make yourself look like a despicably privileged colonizer.
This book has, as the final activity, a "Native American Cultures MadLib".
Think about that.
As a learning exercise, children are encouraged to make a literal joke out of Indigenous cultures.
That is not the only problem. Many of the crafts are profoundly disrespectful toward the cultures that are purportedly the subjects being learned about. "Make Your Own Katsina Doll"? Really? And how does a child learn anything real about Hopi culture by desecrating this tradition? "Make Your Own Totem Pole" out of marshmallows and graham crackers? No thanks.
That's not all. Open the book to the title page; there is an illustration showing stereotypical tipis along with a stereotypical birchbark canoe, Great Plains cultures mashed together with eastern Woodland cultures: your kids are already being misinformed.
Turn a couple pages, and we have an erratic and sketchy "Timeline" that starts off with "20,000 BCE" outdated information. Your kids are being misinformed.
Turn the page: an Introduction where "Hiawatha" is presented as Native American culture. The "Hiawatha" of American understanding is fake legend created by Longfellow. Your kids are being misinformed.
Turn a couple pages, and there - Surprise! - is the mandatory "Where Did Native Americans Come From" trope. Let me ask you: when have you opened a book about European culture, and the book asks "Where did European people come from?" And yet, this subject appears in almost every book about Indigenous America. Ask yourself why, Why do colonizers fret so much about Native American origins? It's an insidiously anti-Native trope. You should be ashamed. You are guilty for allowing this to continue. YOU should feel bad about yourself. Bad settler. Bad.
Look at the picture on this page: a cartoon of an actual bridge with stick figures jogging across the Bering Strait. Misleading beyond any allowances for artistic license, and an illustration of an outdated theory anyway.
Maybe it gets better. Turn the page. A craft activity! Make a relief map of the continental landforms! Cool . . . wait, not the continent, just the 48 contiguous states of the U.S.
The familiar outline is in no way Indigenous! Your kids are being misinformed.
Turn the page, and there's some actual information.
Followed by those denigrating activities. And then the unbelievably offensive MadLib.
Buy this book if you want to misinform -- dare I say disinform? -- your children, demean Native American cultures, and make yourself look like a despicably privileged colonizer.
February 10, 2017
The e-book version has many misspellings. This makes it difficult to use with my 3rd graders. Buy the paperback book as it's correct. The information is accurate and written nicely for children. The projects reveal better in the paperback. The artwork is beautifully done and has a friendliness to it. It works in both editions, but is superior in the paperback version.
February 10, 2017
The e-book version has many misspellings. This makes it difficult to use with my 3rd graders. Buy the paperback book as it's correct. The information is accurate and written nicely for children. The projects reveal better in the paperback. The artwork is beautifully done and has a friendliness to it. It works in both editions, but is superior in the paperback version.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews