A Kid's Guide to Native American History: More than 50 Activities

A Kid's Guide

by Yvonne Wakim Dennis, Arlene Hirschfelder

Hands-on activities, games, and crafts introduce children to the diversity of Native American cultures and teach them about the people, experiences, and events that have helped shape America, past and present. Nine geographical areas cover a variety of communities such as the Mohawk in the Northeast, Ojibway in the Midwest, Shoshone in the Great Basin, Apache in the Southwest, Yup'ik in Alaska, and Native Hawaiians. Featuring a look at the lives of notable historical and contemporary individuals, including Chief Joseph and Maria Tallchief, this guide also covers a variety of topics, such as first encounters with Europeans, Indian removal, Mohawk skywalkers, and Navajo code talkers. With activities that highlight the arts, games, food, clothing, unique celebrations, language and lifeways of various nations, kids can make Iroquois corn husk dolls, play Washoe stone jacks, design Inupiat sun goggles, or create a Hawaiian Ma'o-hau-hele Bag. A time line, glossary, and recommendations for websites, books, movies, and museums for further study round out this multicultural guide.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Native American, American History, Childrens

242 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Vicki Tillman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I had had this when I was homeschooling my kids. Lovely unit studies of Native Americans, past and present, along with meaningful activities. Presently from a Native American viewpoint.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My homeschoolers and I just finished a month-long Native American unit, and this book was the backbone of the lessons. Sweeping from east coast to west, plus up into Canada, Alaska, and Aleutian Islands, this book was great for factual information, handcrafts to attempt, dispelling certain stereotypes, highlighting important chiefs or tribal leaders and warriors, and pronunciation of certain tribes’ words. We learned so much! Highly recommend this book.

[Daly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another one we used during 2020 and 2021 for history class. Which our kids being multicultural... mixed... it's been great to learn about it as well. Me being Taino from Puerto Rico and my husband is a mixed part Cherokee. We have lots to learn from everything we are, so this one one sure we will continue to read for our history class during 2022.

[Charity · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting overview of the cultures that were in what is now the United States before it was the United States and where they are today, and a kid-appropriate but honest look at the ways in which European explorers, settlers, and traders and later the U.S. government exploited and mistreated native peoples. It's also how my son knew about the history of the Cleveland Indians' name before his Ohio Nana did.

We didn't do any of the activities (we're not very crafty), but they look pretty good.

[Desiree Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was intended to be an introduction for my son to Native American History. It wasn't graphic, but I wished sometimes that they wouldn't have gone into so much detail about how they were treated. I think, for children, it's good that they know an overview of what happened, but I believe it could have been done slightly more gently for my sensitive, people-loving, special needs son.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes yes yes yes yes!

I wish everyone could read this book.

[Carolyn]

A little dry, but good information about Native Americans and their history. Lots of activities to try as well.

[Cassie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay. If you are really interested in Native American history and love little craft projects, this is an excellent choice. It is, however, quite dry despite having excellent actual information. We actually considered shelving it about halfway through because it was kind of a slog to get through. We decided to push on, skipping some paragraphs that weren’t peaking the kids’ interest. The activities themselves were sometimes good, sometimes not (granted, we only did a handful of them anyway). There was one I remember that did not have good directions at all, but I wouldn’t say that was the case for all of them. This was a hard book to rate because, although we didn’t really enjoy it, it seems to be the most accurate and comprehensive book out there for young kids on the topic.

In short: great information, but I don’t think it helped bring Native American history to life by any means.

ETA: I didn’t read other reviews before writing my own, but I’ll parrot what one said regarding the descriptions of how Native Americans are treated throughout history; The book gives a very honest account of their hardships. I wouldn’t say the language/descriptions are brutal, but it’s not gentle either.

[Kaitlyn Wacker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Te fourth book I chose to read was "A kids guide to Native American History" by Yvonne Dennis. A great twin text is the fiction book "The First Strawberries by Joseph Bruchac." The First Strawberries shows how hard the native americans worked to grow and harvest their own food. A Kid's Guide to Native American History goes in depth when talking about all of the great things native americans did. The guide talks about the food they grew, the artwork they created, the homes they built, and the land they traveled on. I think these are both great books for children to learn more about native americans and their background.

[Whitney Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great twin text for A Kid's Guide to Native American History is fiction book The First Strawberries by Joseph Bruchac. The First Strawberries shows how hard the native americans worked to grow and harvest their own food. A Kid's Guide to Native American History goes in depth when talking about all of the great things native americans did. The guide talks about the food they grew, the artwork they created, the homes they built, and the land they traveled on. I think these are both great books for children to learn more about native americans and their background.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a kid's guide, it is much too wordy and needs many more visuals.