Native American Crafts: Easy to Make Colorful Totem Pole

Children love to do crafts. You can teach them about other cultures by making Native American totem poles. Totem poles are a symbol to tell the story about family history in Indian clans through spirits pictured in human and animal form. Some symbols for totem poles are animals, birds, people, insects, water and sky. This Native American craft project will get their creativity juices flowing and they will have so much fun making them.

You will need the following supplies:
A paper towel tube
Regular scissors and wavy scrapbooking scissors
Glue Stick
Black, Red, Blue, Orange Markers or Colored Pencils
Eagle feathers
3 Popsicle Sticks
Cardstock in brown, navy blue, orange and white
Ruler

Totem Pole Instructions:

1.First you will take the ruler and pencil and make a rectangle that measures 2.75" high x 6" wide on white card stock. You will make two. You will take the brown and blue cardstock and do the same thing by measuring them with the ruler and cut them out with the regular scissors

2.You will take the wavy scrapbooking scissors and the orange cardstock and cut along the border of the paper about 1/2 inches. On the straight edge of the paper also cut that so the whole strip is wavy. You will now cut them into smaller individual pieces so the kids can use them as accents on their totem pole. If you are doing this as a classroom project I would cut out the rectangles and strips ahead of time for the kids so they don't have to cut anything.

3.The child can color in the two white rectangles in whatever color they wish with coloring pencils, and can use the black marker to make slits for the eyes and a mouth. They can glue the wavy accents on the edges of the rectangle at a slant on both sides towards the mouth.

4.The brown rectangle is to make a eagle's head. The child will need to draw a beak in black and eyes and then color in the beak with the orange marker so it can be seen on the paper. They can now add faces to the blue cardstock using the black marker and draw in other wavy lines using the other colored markers.

5.You will take a scrap sheet of paper or paper towel to place underneath the rectangles while the child is adding glue to the back of the rectangle. You will place one of the white rectangles they colored in on first, then the brown one, followed by the white, and finally the blue rectangle. As you are gluing them make sure to overlap the edges.

6.The child will glue the eagle feathers onto a popsicle stick going across. You will glue to the back of the paper towel tube in the center of the eagle brown cardstock for the eagle's wings.

7.Finally you will take the two popsicle sticks laying flat and glue to the bottom of the totem pole so that it will stand up on it's own.

Children will love putting together this fun Native American craft project that is so easy to do.