Indigenous art collage craft!

I recently planned a storytime/passive programming craft at my library branch focused on Indigenous art. This idea is perfect for Native American Heritage Month, but can/should be used any time of the year! Kids had the opportunity to make animal collages using art by Indigenous artists from all over North America. I especially wanted to share this idea on my blog because it took hours of research to find animal illustrations actually by Native artists or official sources from various locations throughout the continent. My hope is that other librarians or teachers can use this collection of resources (see resources below!) with kids or even adults.

Below is a picture of a map* I made which serves as a guide to the animal art I cut out or scanned from various coloring pages and resources. Kids can look at the map to learn the artist names and Indigenous group they are associated with.

the map hanging on the wall above the kids’ craft table at my library branch!

*As you can see, I noted that this is not a comprehensive list of Native groups within North America, and I selected the art based on what was clearly made by Native artists or from official sources, such as tribal websites.

close up of instructions to make this map work well for passive programming

At storytime and as passive programming, kids selected animals to arrange as a collage and color them in if they would like. My example collage can be seen below. I had so much fun putting this project together, so please reach out if you are a librarian or educator and have any questions!