History of Native Americans

[kalusignan]

I'm looking to delve deeper into our current study of native Americans, and I'm looking for a book or books that explain an overall history, chronologically and also explaining and expanding on the different tribes (the big picture). This would be mainly for my 8 yo with little one tagging along. I'm thinking something like Story of the World or History of US but just about native Americans? Does that exist? Maybe something similar? We're going to the National Museum of the American Indian this weekend, so maybe I'll find something there...If you have input/ideas, thanks!

[Ravin]

You will get good ideas at the museum. Honestly, if they pay even a little attention, your kids are likely to get an excellent history just from the museum trip.

 

My main piece of advice would be to look for resources that use the past tense only when referring to actual history, and not to Native Americans/First Nations people and their cultures generally.

Edited March 29, 2016 by Ravin

[Matryoshka]

The Native Americans were very, very diverse.  I don't know of any book, especially for that age, that has a comprehensive history.

 

What I did at that age was focus on specific tribes; I think that gave a better overview of the diversity of history and culture than grouping into meaningless lumps like 'the woodland tribes' and 'the plains tribes'.  We read myths/legends from each and read non-fiction books specific to that tribe.  I tried for some geographical diversity, but also chose based on what tribes I could get enough material for that was interesting and appropriate for that age (my kids were 7-8 when we did this).  The tribes we focused on were the Hopi, the Blackfeet, the Cherokee and the Nez Perce - I focused on pre-Columbian times first - there's more to a tribe's history than how they interacted with the settlers and how many got wiped out - I was interested in how they lived before the Europeans got here.  Then when we started learning about European Settlement and the Colonial Period, we learned about the Powhatan, the Wampanoag and the Iroquois.  (We did come back around to the Cherokee later with the Trail of Tears when we got to that point in history, but didn't go into it on the first pass).  We also covered the Incas and Aztecs along with the Spanish colonization.  We covered the Maya alone the year before (their civilization was already gone when the Europeans got here).

 

A great resource that didn't exist when we did this is Before Columbus: The Americas of 1491 , which focuses on American history before the Europeans arrived.

[deerforest]

• The Suzanne Strauss Art ones about the Americas are actually pretty good for that age. We used them as read aloud when DD was probably about 8. We spent several years studying pre-Columbia US from about ages 6-9 so I think we have read just about everything for that age. 
• We used Before Columbus mentioned by previous poster too.
• DK has several books about different Native American groups.
• We had this whole series, which really showcased the diversity: http://www.capstonepub.com/library/series/first-nations-of-north-america/
• USKids History: Book of the American Indians (Brown Paper School) was pretty good
• Maestro's "Discovery..." book is okay.. a little too focused on discovery but approachable for that age

We loved Morning Girl as a read-aloud.

[Aurelia]

We used and liked The Indian Book at that age. Despite its terrible name, it had good facts about several tribes around the US, and included information about daily life and a myth. It's OOP, but you can get copies fairly cheaply. DD liked it enough to reread it on her own a couple of years later. We coupled it with books like If You Lived with the Hopi or If You Lived with the Indians of the Northwest Coast, History Pockets Native Americans and novels like Tikta'liktak and The Birchbark House.

[Haiku]

We also used Before Columbus and really liked it. We also picked several nations and read about them on their official websites, and we read articles from historical and current native newspapers.

[Holly]

There is a History Pockets on Native Americans that looks interesting.  It's for grades 1-3 and covers several different nations.