Native American Homes

Summary
Introduction to the various types of traditional Native American homes.

Objectives
• Student will be able to describe 6 different Native American homes and identify the tribes typically associated with them.

Suggested Grades
2nd Grade
3rd Grade

Excerpt
Today, Native American people live in ordinary houses like yours and mine. But long ago, in order to have a place to live, people had to build houses by hand. Depending on where they lived, Native American tribes built different types of homes using materials found in nature. Let?s learn about them.

Tipis (or tepees) were one type of home built by Native Americans living in the Great Plains, such as the Sioux. A tipi was built of buffalo hide and thin wooden poles, and was shaped like a cone. Since the Great Plains was a grassy area with few trees, Plains Indians often had to trade horses to get the wooden poles for their tipis. Plains Indians needed to travel a lot as they followed the migrations of the animals they hunted, especially the buffalo. The tipi design was perfect for travel since it was light and could be packed and unpacked quickly.

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