Yup’ik-Story Knife Crayon Resist American Indian Craft for children to explore the traditions of First Nations through creativity and storytelling.
A fun and educational way to explore North American history, culture, and tradition is by offering children make native crafts. The American Indian craft called Yup’ik-Story Knife Crayon Resist was used by children while playing outside, practicing yaaruin, or illustrating stories. This type of art was a way of remembering tribal stories and values. This type of artistic expression promotes creativity while practicing storytelling and kindling the imagination. Children can create any art and the underlying story to go along with it! Besides promoting fine motor control and hand-eye coordination, children are also enriching language and speaking skills.
We are referencing American Indian Crafts Kids Can Do! book.
What you will need for this American Indian Craft
- brightly colored cardstock
- dark crayons (we are using these oil pastels)
- a toothpick
- and a sprinkle of imagination
Yup’ik-Story Knife Crayon Resist American Indian Craft
Instructions:
First, completely cover the entire cardstock with a dark crayon. Press hard and add multiple layers of crayon untill the surface is thick and shiny. Then, use a toothpick to draw or scratch pictures in the crayon wax as you tell a story. Draw draw from left to right as you describe your drawing through the story telling.
Using a toothpick, offer a child to draw a story.
Imaginative storytelling while exploring creativity is an amazing way for children to express themselves.
Adrian’s story is about a fishy and a blue macaw bird.
Yup’ik-Story Knife Crayon Resist American Indian Craft
The opportunity to play freely encourages healthy development, and the opportunity to create freely benefits the child as a whole. Imaginative storytelling also helps with language training which is a vital part of the Montessori environment. Language Training activities elicit language from children and make them aware of the content, meaning, and context of the language they are hearing and using. There are many activities that can be used in Language Training, and imaginative stories are one of them. (You may download “Imagine Stories” Cards here.)
Do you use books to inspire you to make arts and crafts with your children?
Materials and books we are using for our North American Study:
- National Geographic Our World Atlas is the beginner Atlas book we have been reading and referring to since Adrian was two years old.
- National Geographic Kids Beginner’s World Atlas is the next stage atlas (I would suggest for children 3-6 yo).
- National Geographic Student World Atlas is a comprehensive edition for children 7 y+.
- We will also be using American Indian Crafts Kids Can Do! book.
- Lastly, we have aminals that are exclusive to North America like an alligator, a black bear, and a North America black panther.
See here North America Unit Study • ⛵️Pilgrims & 🏹American Indians
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