Native American Craft Supplies

Beads, fabrics, clay and more Native American craft supplies.

Any troop leader or preschool teacher can tell you, during certain times of the year, it is inevitable that children will be completing Native American crafts. Designing Native American dresses, making headdresses You name it, kids will make it around Thanksgiving or during a unit on early American history. In order to avoid the annoyance of not having the right materials for a project, teachers and adult leaders should try to keep the following Native American craft supplies:

Brown fabric or old t-shirts. Many projects will call for children to make clothing, or even mini-tipis. If you will ask your parents to send old pillowcases and t-shirts, you will be able to make dresses and vests very easily by soaking them in brewed tea. Raiding craft and fabric stores for their clearance brown fabrics is also a great idea; that way you can have enough bulk material for tipis, Indian blankets, or other large items.

Beads. You really can never have too many beads. These items are very inexpensive and can be used in a variety of crafts, such as jewelry or as adornment for other crafts the kids make.

Fabric crayons. Fabric crayons are great for all kinds of crafts; but they are especially useful for decorating Indian clothing. With some wax paper, kids can turn their favorite drawing into symbols for their vests or dresses.

Different colors of construction paper. Most Indian crafts look great in any color, and children love to cut feathers out of construction paper for a headdress or a warriors arrow.

String. No collection of Native American craft supplies would be complete without several different types, colors, and weights of string. String is needed to tie dresses, close tipis, hold necklaces together, and make warrior bows.