Native American Story Telling

For this activity, students got the chance to tell a story through symbols! We learned that Native Americans used buffalo hide and symbols to tell a story. Therefore, that was the main focus in this lesson. Our first step was to create our background. We were encouraged to use the colors of a sunset (red, orange, & yellow). We first got little sections of our white paper wet with water and then painted over it with watercolors. (wet-on-wet method) We set our background paper aside to dry. While it was drying, we were then instructed to start brainstorming ideas for a story. We had to use at least 6 symbols. Once we figured out a story, we drew the symbols on our “buffalo hide” (a precut paper bag that was soaked in water then dried to give it a crumpled look). After the symbols were drawn on, we glued the paper bag onto our sunset background.

My Native American story: On a bright sunny day, my family and I traveled by road to the river. Here, we caught fish! At nighttime, we made a campfire.

Extension activity: For social studies, students could look at some examples of old time stories and try to decode them by looking at the symbols. Another activity students could do with this is act out their story. I think they would have fun doing that!