Throughout the year we have been working on our Native American History Pockets. This was something all 3 of my kids could work on as a group & I loved teaching them all together.

We used construction paper & yarn to create the books. Super simple & inexpensive.

We learned about 8 different tribes throughout the US & Canada.

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The cover of Farm Kid2’s book.
It is a 12″ x 18″ piece of construction paper cut to 12″ x 12″.

We began each pocket with the kids coloring the pieces specific to the tribe we were studying, while I read the information booklet.

This book has 9 pockets, each made from 12″ x 18″ construction paper. I folded up the bottom 6″ inches of the construction paper & stapled the sides to create the pockets.

The first pocket includes a picture dictionary, a map showing the shelters from each tribe & a comparison chart.

Throughout the year I read stories about Native Americans, typically legends. The books weren’t always on the specific tribe we were studying, but they were from a nearby area. I thought this would help the kids get a visual of the types of clothes they wore & the environment they lived in. Two of the books we enjoyed were The Story of Blue Elk and The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush. Have I mentioned how much I love Tomie dePaola? Well, I do. I think his books are fabulous.

Each pocket had an activity or two specific to the tribe, such as this mask from the Tlingit.

It was especially fun to see real life examples of masks and other items used by the Native Americans when we visited the Portland Art Museum and the Columbia Gorge Interpretive Center.

In The Seminole tribe pocket, there is a recipe to make hominy. We didn’t make it.

But, in the Navajo booklet it mentions that they ate fry bread with most meals. I did attempt making fry bread. It was delicious, but not very flat.

We tried the fry bread two ways – one with cinnamon & sugar, the other with lunch served taco style.

We worked on these pockets throughout the year. When possible we did a pocket to go along with other units of study. For example, we completed The Inuit pocket during the winter when we were reading Jan Brett’s Three Snow Bears. You can find a mural to print of The Three Snow Bears on Jan Brett’s website.

I enjoyed the freedom of homeschooling & changed things up to fit our needs a couple times.

#1: The tribe the publishers chose for the NE part of the US was The Iroquis. But, I wanted to tie this unit in with Thanksgiving, so I switched the tribe we studied to the Wampanoag. I found my own information about the Wampanoag to share with the kids, but they were still able to do The Iroquis activites.

#2: This History Pocket book was geared towards grades 1-3, so some of it was a bit easy for my 11 year old. Because of this, I came up with a few activities I thought he would enjoy. The book has a wampum craft for this pocket, but I chose to have the kids make a wampum belt instead.

Since the kids were learning about the shelters of each tribe, I wanted them to craft at least one shelter. I chose a teepee when we were studying The Sioux.

I am a fan of History Pockets, & this one did not disappoint. The tribe booklets were thorough enough that the kids learned a few key things about each tribe without being overwhelmed. I especially liked that it included the first pocket, which was a quick way to see where the various tribes lived & we could easily compare their lifestyles.

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To go along with our Native American studies we visited the Columbia Gorge Interpretive Center. This was our first time exploring this museum.

I was surprised at the variety of exhibits. We were there for the Indian artifacts, but also learned about the natural history, transportation, & community of the Columbia Gorge.

FIRST PEOPLES – THE CASCADE CHINOOK

We began our tour in the section of the museum that housed the items we came to see, The Native American exhibit.

Left: Standing tall & proud in the middle of the exhibit is a replica of  Tsagaglalal: She Who Watches. She is probably the most recognizable petroglyph in our area.

Top Right: Carved totems or sticks & Shaman’s spangle or shield.

Bottom Right: Canoe anchor & net sinker

Top Left: Knife – Stone blade attached by pitch to antler handle.
Not long before we visited the museum, Farm Kid1 asked me how the Indians made knives. I had to tell him I didn’t know, but probably out of bones or stones. I was happy to see this example & an explanation of what it was made from.

Top Right: Gaming stone – rolled or kicked by teams in the “kick” game.
Holy cow, that must have hurt when you kicked it.

Bottom: Root gathering or storage bags.

Left: Ceremonial dress made from buckskin with bead & shell embellishments

Emory Strong Library
Emory Strong spent more than 40 years researching the early people of the Columbia River Basin. After his death, his family donated his collection to the museum. Walking in the library is only available by appointment, but we could see all the memorabilia & artifacts through the glass.

TURNING POINT & THE CORPS OF DISCOVERY

With Lewis & Clark exploring the area in the early 1800’s, change was certainly coming. Between 1850 and 1853 land speculators & settlers filed claims under the Donation Land Act along the north bank of the Columbia River.

Top Left: Council Fire on the Columbia by David Manuel
A bronze sculpture with Native Americans & members of the Corp of Discovery. There was a small sign encouraging us to find a few items in the sculpture like a quill pen, fishing net, & blue trade beads. I love things like that. I guarantee my kids would have took a quick glance at the sculpture and moved on. Instead, they examined the sculpture searching for the items.

Bottom Left: Model of the Clahclehlah village
Lewis & Clark visited this site in 1805 & 1806. It was excavated from 1977 -1979 during the construction of a powerhouse at Bonneville Dam. Many artifacts were found.

Right: Items typically traded by the people of Clahclehlah in the early 1800’s, such as wapato roots, salmon tails, hazelnuts, tobacco, wool blankets & dentalium shells.

EARLY CHANGES

This area focused on the pioneers moving to the area & the military forts needed to protect them from Native Americans.

1907 dry goods store front
The real Doumitt Store closed in 1957.

The store windows displayed items available at the store. I love the items from this time period.

TRANSPORTATION

A small area is dedicated to sternwheelers & the SP & S (Spokane, Portland & Seattle) Railroad. I’ll admit we didn’t spend a lot of time in this area, although I do find the changes in transportation interesting. The sternwheelers were basically put out of business once the railroad came through. I’m curious to see what, if anything, makes automobiles obsolete.

Bailey Gatzert pilot wheel
The Bailey Gatzert was a sternwheeler built in 1890. She ran up and down the Columbia River & also around Puget Sound until the 1920’s.

HARVESTING RESOURCES

A large, open area showcases the timber & fishing industries.

Top Left: Logging equipment

Top Right: 1930 Caterpillar Tractor

Bottom: 1921 Mack Log truck. Max speed is 17.2 mph

Top Left: Typical airplane to deliver air male, a 1917 Curtiss JN-4 or “Jenny” bi-plane.

Bottom Left: The Corliss Engine, a giant saw mill steam engine weighing 32 tons. This thing was huge. It was made in 1895 & provided energy to a sawmill until 1949.

Right: McCord Fishwheel Replica
I asked Farm Kid2 what he thought this huge contraption was used for. He said he thought it had something to do with catching fish. I thought he was crazy, but it turns out that he was right. The wheels were placed in the Columbia River scooping up fish & dumping them into boxes. They were very effective. By 1935 they were banned in both Oregon & Washington.

HARSH DEMANDS – BONNEVILLE DAM

It is a small section of the museum, but I found the effects of Bonneville Dam & our need for its hydro-electric power very interesting.

COMMUNITY GALLERY

Inside & around the “house” are items about the people in the community.

Left: An old scrapbook. I’m so tempted to make one of these oldies, but goodies, for my kids. It’s a much better way than an old box to hold their memorabilia.

Right: Canteen cup with WWII battle locations inscribed

JAPANESE COLLECTION

An added bonus at the museum was their Japanese collection. We had just finished studying Japan, so it was great timing to view items from that culture.

Since Japan is right across the Pacific Ocean many Japanese immigrants came to the Pacific NW in the early 1900’s. They helped build roads, railroads, & tunnels, they planted orchards & operated ranches.
Top: Kazeon-bosatsu (Goddess of Mercy)
c. 1600
The gold ball in her hand represents happiness, joy & good health

Top: Wedding kimono

Bottom Left: “Beautiful Woman Just from Bath” by Kitagawa Utamaro
wood block print. copy of 1797 original
When we went to the Portland Art Museum I was hoping to see a wood block print, which we didn’t. So, I was glad to see one here.

ROSARY COLLECTION

I am not Catholic, but this was amazing. The Don Brown Rosary Collection displays about 4000 rosaries.

OUTDOOR EXHIBITS

Court of the Cedars
Carved in 1980 by Dudley Carter at 90 years old.
Right: Primitive Woman

Top: Early logging & road building equipment
If you are someone who really likes machinery, this museum had lots of machines to admire.

Bottom: 1959 SP & S diesel locomotive
Supposedly there is a geocache hidden on that train engine, but we didn’t find it. Dang it!

I am definitely glad we went to this museum. We learned so much about the Native people & the many changes over the years in an area not far from our home.

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Throughout the year we learned a little bit about a few different Native American tribes. When we were studying the Sioux of the Great Plains the boys made teepees out of paper bags.

This project was completed in one sitting & made a great visual when learning about the Sioux. We learned that the teepees were positioned so the door flaps opened to the east, the direction of the rising sun. We learned that the designs painted or embroidered on the outside represented something significant about the family living in the teepee. They had fires & cooked in their teepees. This, of course, created smoke. The hole & flaps at the top of the teepee were there to let the smoke escape.

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I used the tipi project from this Indians of the Great Plains stencil book as a guide for our teepees.

It seems so simple, which really it was. But, it still took a little trial & error to get the template just right for the boys to trace. It’s basically a half circle with wings at the top to create smoke flaps.

The boys cut open a paper grocery bag & traced around my template onto the bag. Then they used oil pastels to decorate their teepee. Both boys chose to use one stencil from the book, as well as add a few other design elements

The boys used tape to fasten the paper bag into a cone shape. We found we needed to add tape to both the inside & outside of the teepee to keep it together. Then they taped 6 skewers on the inside to act as the long poles holding up the teepee.

Left: They folded out the smoke flaps.
Right: And, they folded out the door flaps.
They also added toothpicks to act as pins holding the teepee together.

Farm Kid1 chose to add long poles (aka skewers) to the back of his teepee through the smoke flaps. Farm Kid2 chose not to add these poles.

Farm Kid1’s teepee

Farm Kid2’s teepee. The symbols on his smoke flap represent 3 days & 3 nights.

This was definitely a fun project. I had fun seeing what designs the boys came up with. They turned out so well I currently have them displayed on our mantel.

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To go along with our Native American studies the kids made these awesome symbols out of oil pastel. The Plains Indians used both naturalistic & geometric designs in their art. We made both.

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I picked this book up at a home school group book swap. It’s a Good Year Book titled Indians of the Great Plains & comes with stencils. I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed the book. It describes much about the life of Plains Indians, as well as tell a few legends. Each stencil has information about why that design was important. There are also a number of great projects in the back of the book. We made the teepee & parfleche bag.

When I saw an Indian symbols craft at Art Projects for Kids I knew it would be a perfect way to use the stencils.

Using a paper bag as their canvas, they traced a stencil with pencil.

Then, they went over their pencil lines with black oil pastel.

Next, they colored inside the black line.

And finally, they made a border around the outside of the black line with white oil pastel.

Native American men typically painted naturalistic images on their belongings, such as shields & teepees.

Women used porcupine quills or beads to create geometric designs.

Left: Naturalistic Designs: Elk, Buffalo & Horse
Right: Geometric Designs: Turtle, Spider & Dragonfly

I loved this project. The kids did a great job!

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Another Native American craft the kids made were wampum belts. There are fabulous instructions at There’s a Dragon in my Art Room. We didn’t stray too far, if at all, from her directions.

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I asked the boys to make 3 30 x 5 rectangles on graph paper. Then, fill each rectangle in with a design possibility for their wampum belt. Each square represented one bead.

Authentic wampum belts were made with shells, but we used pony beads instead.

Left:  I cut a 3″ x 11.5″ loom out of stiff cardboard. This photo is the back of the loom once we wrapped it with string. Both ends are taped to the loom.
Top Right: This plastic kids needle barely fit through the beads, but it did fit.
Bottom Right: We used a stiffer twine for threading the beads. I’m not sure I would recommend it, but it worked.

They turned out great!

I loved this activity because it was something out of the ordinary for us. We don’t often use beads in our artwork. Plus, it was a fun hands-on Native American learning experience.

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Parfleche were bags used by Native Americans living in the Plains to carry dried meat &/or personal belongings, such as clothes. The kids each made a parfleche bag out of a grocery sack.

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We used the parfleche project in this Indians of the Great Plains stencil book as a guide to making the bags.

Our parfleche bags were made from paper grocery bags, but the Native Americans made theirs from rawhide. The basic shape is a rectangle with rounded corners.

Most often the parfleche bags made by Native Americans were decorated with geometric designs, but I told my kids to decorate their bags however they wanted.

Top: After the kids decorated their bags with oil pastel we began folding them. The first fold was meeting the top & bottom edges in the middle.
Bottom Left: Then the left & right edges were folded to meet in the middle.
Bottom Right: And finally, they used a hole punch & string to tie their bags together.

Farm Girl decorated a bag & I tied it.

I had plans to have the kids carry something useful in their bags, but we haven’t gotten to that yet. Maybe we can figure out a use for them over the summer.

I can’t help but think about the bags we use in our house. We have so many bags it’s ridiculous. The Native Americans put so much effort & pride into their handmade bags. And, I’m fed up that the area we use for bags is completely overflowing with store bought hum drum bags & I’ve been thinking about getting rid of a bunch of them. Times have certainly changed.

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Back in November we learned about Life in Plymouth Colony using Evan Moor’s History Pockets. This was a great way for the kids to learn a little more about the pilgrims. There was reading, vocabulary, crafts & activities with very little prep from me, which was nice.

Making the Book

The book is made from 12″ x 18″ sheet of construction paper.

The cover is cut to 12″ x 12″.

To create pockets for each topic, the bottom of the 12″ x 18″ paper is folded up & stapled to make a pocket to hold all the goodies. This book had 8 pockets.

The front cover, back cover & eight pocket pages were hole punched and tied together with hand dyed yarn.

Each pocket had “words to know.” We would read the information pages to figure out what the words meant & then the boys would write down what they learned.

Each pocket also had an activity or two such as making hasty pudding (which we didn’t like) and building a keeping room

Voyage to the New World

Building a Village
The boys pretended they were the town crier. They had to think about news worthy events of the time & then stand at the front of the room & read them to the rest of us in loud voices. They loved doing this!

Working in Plymouth Colony

 The Family

What Did the Pligrims Give Us?
At the end of the unit they wrote an acrostic poem to the Pilgrims, using the words thank you. They also made a paper version of a game the pilgrims typically created from wood.

This was a quick unit completed right at Thanksgiving. I didn’t add much to it. I didn’t need to. It was just the right amount of information for the time we had.

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As part of our Westward Movement Unit, we worked on Evan-Moor’s Moving West History Pockets. I was impressed with the variety explored in this book.

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I created the books using paper grocery bags & yarn. The front cover is about 12″ x 12″. The inside pockets were cut to about 12″ x 16″. The 16″ side is folded up from the bottom 4″ and stapled to create the pocket. After each pocket was made, I hole punched them & tied them together with yarn we dyed.

There were a number of maps from the Scholastic book, Interactive 3-D Maps: American History, that we added to our pockets.

Moving West Intro Pocket
Each pocket came with great historical information, a writing project & a craft.

Exploring the Wilderness Pocket
We spent quite a bit of time on this pocket – mostly because it included Lewis & Clark. We went on two field trips to learn more about these famous fellows and the Corps of Discovery. We went to the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center in Washington and to Fort Clatsop in Oregon.

The boys each made a map from Scholastic’s 3-D map book.

We learned about the Westward Journey Nickel series from the US mint. We made rubbings of the front & back of each nickel… although, they didn’t turn out quite as well as I hoped.

We also rubbed a golden Sacajawea dollar. Years ago I worked in downtown Portland & would take the MAX to work, which is our light rail system. If you were due change after paying for your ticket, dollars were issued to you in the Sacajawea coin. I always thought that was cool.

I bought the Lewis and Clark Expedition Coloring Book at a trinket shop at the beach. The kids each colored a few pages and added them to their pocket.

Our favorite books to go along with this unit were Seaman’s Journal, the expedition told through the dog’s eyes, and American Slave, American Hero, the story of William Clark’s slave York.

The Gold Rush Pocket
On our road trip, we stopped at Columbia State Historic Park and explored a “real” mining town. It is in California, right off Highway 49. It was a great field trip to go with this pocket.

Oregon Trail Pocket
The Oregon Trail pocket got a little extra attention. It is kind of a big deal around here, since we are near the end. We even visited the End of the Oregon Trail historical site.

Native American Struggles Pocket
We learned about how the Native Americans used the land and how white man basically took it all away from them.

We added a Trail of Tears map from the Scholastic book.

And, 5 More Pockets
We worked on 5 other pockets, as well, including Homesteading the Great Plains (which I loved mainly due to Laura Ingalls Wilder) & Building the Railroads.

I enjoyed this unit a lot. The activities from the History Pockets book were great, and made even better with our additions. We made a Covered Wagon Craft that I have always wanted to do. I could have expanded on this subject all year. But, we had other things to learn…

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Is it silly that I’ve always wanted to do a covered wagon project? Well, silly or not, I finally had a good excuse to have the boys make their own covered wagons. We were studying the days of the pioneers. We just had to make a covered wagon to go along with that era… And to tell the truth, I was hoping to make an entire old west town out of cardboard. But, we ran out of time & now it’s time to move on to other subjects. Hopefully we can still make the old west town one day.

THE WAGONS

Farm Kid2 chose to add oxen. Love that.

The base of the wagon was a small cardboard box. They covered the box with strips of brown construction paper to resemble wood.

This is not a fancy craft. The hoops holding up the canvas are pieces of wire shoved between layers of the cardboard. As I’ve mentioned before, awhile ago we dyed paper, yarn & fabric. They used scraps of that fabric as the canvas on their covered wagon, which is why their canvas is tinted purple. We used the dyed yarn to tie the canvas to the covered wagon.

The axles & wheels are tinker toys & cardboard.

They were given cardboard scraps & paper to add details to their wagon, such as people & their seats.

I love how they added kids looking out the back like you see in pictures.

I’m really happy with how these turned out & the effort the kids put into making them. They seemed to have a great time with this project.

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As part of our Moving West unit, we are learning about Lewis & Clark. We spent part of the weekend exploring the Lewis & Clark National & State Historical Parks in both Oregon & Washington. This is along the Pacific Ocean, the final destination of Lewis & Clark’s Expedition. At Cape Disappointment we toured the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center.

The Lewis & Clark National & State Parks are within the beautiful old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest.

INTERPRETIVE CENTER

Lewis & Clark’s team, The Corps of Discovery, carried a 15 star & 15 stripe flag (similar to this one) on their expedition. By the time Lewis & Clark went on their adventure (1803) there were 17 states, but the flag hadn’t been redesigned yet.

A half scale replica of the dugout canoes used by the Corps of Discovery.

There were many hands on activities, which of course, my kids loved. This one is trying to stack a canoe with as many supplies as possible without tipping your boat. The Corps of Discovery had to repack their boats daily.

Elk Skin Coat: Typically the frontiersmen wore buckskin clothes
Knapsack: US Army issued bags painted to repel water
Flintlock Rifle: Replica of the type of gun used by the Corps of Discovery

The Corps of Discovery encountered 24 different Indian tribes on their journey, including the Chinook.

Left:  The Interpretive Center also had examples of the journals kept by the Corps of Discovery.

Right: Once the Corps of Discovery made it to the Pacific Ocean they needed to decide the best place to spend the winter.

The items in this case belonged to Patrick Gass, a member of the Corps of Discovery. On the left is the flask he used. To the right is a wooden razor box believed to have been carved and given to him by Sacagawea.

More amazing to me than the items in the case, though, are the words around the case on the right. It says each of the men in the Corps of Discovery received 320 acres of land & double pay. Lewis & Clark each received 1600 acres and double pay. York and Sacagawea got nothing. Zilch. Nada. I know this was a sign of the times. But, it’s still awful. Obviously the US government was happy with their expedition for the men to receive double pay plus land. It’s appalling that the time, effort & sacrifice from an Indian Woman and a Black Slave weren’t compensated in the same way.

Sacajawea at the Big Water by John F Clymer

The end of the exhibit had pull drawers describing what happened to each member of the Corps of Discovery. York got his freedom sometime after 1811.

There was another section dedicated to the People at the Mouth of the Columbia River

A 3-D map showing where the fresh water Columbia River meets the salt water of the Pacific Ocean. Cape Disappointment is on the Washington side of the river. You can just barely see the You Are Here arrow in this pic.

CAPE DISAPPOINTMENT

Top: Cape Disappointment is one of the foggiest places in the US. I believe it. Not too far from us was the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse. We could barely see it do to the fog.

Bottom Left: The words “Welcome to the Edge of the Continent” amaze me . I have lived near the Pacific Ocean all my life and I take it for granted. I can’t imagine the joy the Corps of Discovery felt when they first saw it.

Bottom Right: The Interpretive Center sits back on a rocky ledge. Many cormorants live on these rocks.

Outside the building is a large version of the nickel featuring the Pacific Ocean in the Westward Journey series. Just the other day we discussed and did rubbings of the Westward Journey nickels.  I wish I would have known this large one was there. I would have brought paper and a crayon for the kid’s to make a rubbing.

FORT CANBY

The Interpretive Center sits where what once was Fort Canby. The fort was built to defend the Columbia River from enemy warships. The US Army was here from the mid 1800’s until the end of WWII.

I love the field trips as much as my kids. I always learn something new & it’s always a great excuse to go see something we wouldn’t normally get to see. We drove across the crazy-steep, then low to the water Astoria Bridge. Made it to the edge of North America. Walked through an amazing old growth forest. Saw a lighthouse in the fog, making it a great time to show the kids why we have lighthouses in the first place. Explored an old army fort. Saw a bald eagle! We learned that the white stuff on the rocks with the cormorants was guano. The kids loved that. We experienced all this and more while the intent was to simply learn a little something about Lewis & Clark. I’m already plotting when we can go back & make a bigger trip out of it.

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