Native American Coloring Pages

November is Native American month, and kids will be concentrating on learning about Indians in school. Younger kids will be exposed to simple, basic lessons about how Native Americans lived and what happened at the widely accepted story of Thanksgiving. Older kids will learn more about Native American lifeways, art, hunting techniques, and history.

Talk to your children about what they are learning in school about Native Americans, especially if you are concerned about not perpetuating stereotypes. Talk about lives of Native Americans in the present, not just the past as if they do not exist anymore.

Some Native American coloring pages available online give totally incorrect impressions of how the Indians once lived. Others are very cartoony and in my opinion, degrading to Native Americans. The following list took a lot of digging, but I have tried to find Native American coloring pages that stayed away from most stereotypical depictions and cartoon representations of Indians as much as possible.

1. Red Birds Vision

This downloadable free 21-page printable coloring book is my favorite set of Native American coloring pages. The coloring book includes text to read along with the pictures.

One thing I liked about this site is that some of the coloring book pictures are divided up by tribe, showing that not all Indians dress or look alike. Pictures and text deal with modern day Indians participating in a powwow. (A powwow is a very colorful gathering of Indians (usually held in the summer) complete with dancing, crafts, food, and time to socialize.)

The quality of these realistic Native American coloring pages is appropriate for older kids as well as younger.

Read AC Content Producer Corina Roberts insightful review and explanation of this site here.

2. Turtletrack

This looks like Native American coloring pages made for and by Native Americans. There are pictures of animals, a maze, a picture story, and one of my childhood favorites, pictographs. A number of animals that figure into Native American life are also depicted in these Native American coloring pages.

3. Apples for the Teacher

Your child can either color these simple line drawings online or print them out to color. These Native American coloring pages depict lifeways, crafts, and people.

4. DLTK Kids

Some of these were awfully simplistic and cartoony, but there were enough good pictures here for me to include this site. Some of these Native American coloring pages I preferred were the B&W Boy, the second Tee Pee drawing, and even the Thunderbird was OK.

5. Edupics

OK, there are one or two cartoony Native American coloring pages here that I don't like at all. See if you can pick them out. But the rest of them are pretty good and include coloring pages such as hide scraping, a couple of Catlin-esque Indians, and a few depictions of Native American life as it was.

6. Nativetech

Although this is only an online interactive Native American coloring page, I am including it because it lets you design your own version of Native American beadwork. Color the beads one by one and build a Native American beadwork design. Great for older kids or even adults. They also have an online coloring book.

7. Artsology.com

Artsology gives us some good depictions of Native American art to color. These Native American coloring pages teach kids about typical representations a Native American might make.

8. Timucua Indians

On the left hand side of the page, open the "Timucua Indians" folder, then click on "Kids Timucua Activities". Scroll down the page and click on "Go to Timucua Coloring pages". While these Native American coloring pages are specific to one Florida Native American tribe, the pictures are good depictions of Indian life, especially those who lived in or near swamps.

9. The Indian Years Coloring Book

Although these Native American coloring pages from Texas aren't precisely realistic, they are not cartoony and fine for teaching children about how the Indians used to live. Included are a picture of an Indian hunting a buffalo, the use of a travois, petroglyphs, and a Native American woman making a basket.

10. TLSbooks.com

Finally, what set of Native American coloring pages would be complete without at least one traditional Thanksgiving page to color? This coloring page depicts a friendly Pilgrim shaking hands with a Native American.

Besides these online Native American coloring pages, there are a number of very good Native American coloring books put out by Dover. If you have time enough to order a coloring book, consider these. I enjoyed them as a kid, and I'm sure your kids will too!