Indigenous Dwellings Bundle: Tipi Craft, Longhouse & Plank House Activities
Explore Indigenous dwellings in Canada through lessons, hands-on learning, and creative classroom activities. This Indigenous dwellings bundle brings together a paper tipi craft, longhouse and plank house directed drawings, reflection questions, and a Venn diagram comparison activity.
Students learn about tipis, longhouses, and plank houses while engaging with the topic through reading, crafting, drawing, and writing. Use these Indigenous dwellings lessons and activities to connect Canadian social studies, visual arts, and literacy in your classroom.
The bundle supports culturally respectful learning about Indigenous Peoples and traditional dwellings. It offers a starting point for exploring different types of homes while recognizing that Indigenous Peoples in Canada have distinct cultures, histories, and traditions.
What’s Included in the Indigenous Dwellings Bundle?
Indigenous Tipi Craft & Lesson
Introduce students to tipis with a two-page tipi lesson, then extend their learning with a paper craft and writing reflection.
This resource includes:
- Two-page tipi lesson to support learning about this Indigenous dwelling
- Paper tipi craft for a hands-on classroom activity
- Craft instruction page to guide students as they build their paper tipi
- Writing reflection activity to help students share what they have learned
- Tipi bulletin board kit to display student work and learning
The tipi lesson and craft combine learning about dwellings with an opportunity to create a paper model. Follow the craft with the reflection activity to connect students’ creative work to the lesson.
Longhouse & Plank House Lessons and Directed Drawing Activities
Explore longhouses and plank houses with a five-page Indigenous dwellings lesson and accompanying drawing, reflection, and comparison activities.
This resource includes:
- Five-page lesson about longhouses and plank houses
- Longhouse directed drawing activity
- Plank house directed drawing activity
- Reflection question activity
- Venn diagram comparison activity
The directed drawings give students a creative way to engage with the dwellings introduced in the lesson. Reflection questions encourage students to revisit their learning, while the Venn diagram provides a way to organize similarities and differences between longhouses and plank houses.
Connect Social Studies, Art & Writing
This Indigenous dwellings activities bundle offers several ways for students to participate and demonstrate their understanding.
Students can:
- Learn about tipis, longhouses, and plank houses through the included lessons
- Follow instructions to create a paper tipi craft
- Draw a longhouse and a plank house using directed drawing activities
- Respond to reflection questions through writing
- Compare longhouses and plank houses using a Venn diagram
Combine the activities across several lessons or use them alongside your classroom learning about Indigenous homes in Canada. The craft and directed drawings provide a visual connection to the topic, while the writing and comparison activities create opportunities to discuss and reflect on learning.
Ways to Use This Bundle in Your Classroom
Include these resources in your Canadian social studies lessons, an exploration of homes and shelters, or classroom learning about Indigenous dwellings. Connect the lessons with visual arts by completing the longhouse and plank house drawings, and incorporate writing through the reflection activities.
Display completed paper tipi crafts with the included bulletin board kit to share students’ work. The drawings and written reflections can also accompany a classroom display about the dwellings studied.
Three Dwellings, Several Ways to Learn
Bring together tipi lessons, a paper tipi craft, longhouse and plank house directed drawings, and Indigenous dwellings comparison activities in one bundle. With opportunities to read, build, draw, write, and compare, this resource helps you turn learning about Indigenous dwellings in Canada into a series of connected classroom experiences.
