Native American Crafts
Totem Pole
1. Gather your materials. Before starting gather some pictures of totem poles, explain that totem poles were used for all different reasons, to tell legends, record history and sometimes just for art. You will need many colors of construction paper, scrap paper is great, although you will need one large piece for the wings. A piece of plain white paper, paper towel roll, glue, scissors, a marker, a paper punch, and some colorful markers. You may also want some tape to keep things in place while glue dries.
2. Start by coloring the white paper, older children can do patterns , younger ones can just go for it. Other than playing with the final product, this was the only step my little man helped me with.3.While they color, cut out eyes, long strips for faces, noses- the sky is the limit. We cut out 3 pairs of eyes, some eyebrows a few noses and mouths.
4.Cut out some wings set aside
5. Cut small feathers from the scrap paper. Set aside.
6. When they are done coloring, wrap the white paper around the paper towel roll. Trim if needed. Set aside.
7. Start gluing on the totem animals faces
, although we didn’t decide exactly what animals we were making, as we glued them on we decided on a raven, a frog and a seagull. Not sure there are many seagulls on real totem poles but that’s ok.
8. Glue the feathers on the wings.9. Glue the wings on the pole and let dry.
I am looking for some guest reviewers for chapter books. If your school age child and/or you would like to review a book you’ve read please email me with the title, the author , your review , first name and age. I will be doing 2-3 of these special posts throughout the summer. If you have any questions drop me a line !
