Tee Pee Craft for Kids

By Sinea Pies

Our preschool class made this craft on “H is for House” day.  As it was also our last time to meet before Thanksgiving, we killed “two birds with one stone”, so to speak, and made a Native American House (Tee Pee.) No birds were harmed in this project. LOL

When you do this craft, you will want to consider the age of the children making it and how many are involved. As a classroom preschool activity, there should be at least one adult helper for every 3 children for them to be involved in the whole process. If you don’t have that, I suggest preparing the top of the tee pees in advance. That is what I did.

Older children can do so much more for themselves;  they will enjoy doing the tops.

Tee Pee Craft

1. Clip the bottoms and tops of the waffle cones.

• Tops: use scissors
• Bottoms: pinch off bottoms with your fingers. Keep trying to stand it up. If it topples over, pinch a tiny bit more off till it does stand. The cone is so brittle, using scissors will take too much off the bottom. Pinching works best!

2. Pre-test the size of the opening at the top of the cone. If two pretzel sticks do not fit at the same time, gently increase the size of the hole.
3. Melt the chocolates.
4. Dip the top of the cones in chocolate. Insert two pretzel sticks about 1-2″ long. Press them against the chocolate so that they stick. Lay them on their side to harden.
5. Take the cones, after the tops have solidified, and dip the bottoms in the bowl of melted chocolate and then in a bowl of either colored sunflower seeds (pictured here) or sprinkles.
6. Lay them on waxed or parchment paper until dry.
7. Place a tee-pee on our display mat at the end of the stone walkway and you have a nice little scene! 

Free Printable Tee Pee Display Mat: Here

Supplemental Learning:Depending on the tribe, Native Americans lived in a variety of styles of houses: Tee Pees, Longhouses & Pueblo Homes

I found this craft in a number of places online. The best was a guest-post by Crystal & Company on PreK-Pages (two of my favorite pre-k blogs) You should check out Crystal’s to see how hers turned out!

      

Note: this author is an Amazon affiliate. Anything purchased  from Amazon through Ducks ‘n a Row will result in a small commission for me. In advance, “thank you” …Sinea