Southwestern Region Native American Pueblo House Project

Karlie recently did a Social Studies project for school.  She was studying about the Native Americans and the different regions.  Karlie picked the Southwest Region and the pueblo house for her project.   She had to make a pueblo house and write a paragraph on how the lodging benefited them.

Even though the girls are both in the same grade and have similar projects they rarely chose do to the same thing with their projects!  The great part about them being so different is we have more opportunities to learn while doing various school projects.  For this particular Social Studies Project Brina did the Great Plains Region with Tepee housing and Karlie chose the Southwest Region with Pueblo housing.

Putting the final touches on the pueblo house!

Karlie‘s Southwest Region Pueblo Paragraph:  Southwest Pueblo Native Americans used pueblo houses that were made of harden clay.  They lived in a village and their houses resembled an apartment building on mesas.  The pueblo housing was beneficial to their way of life because the mesas helped cool the houses and protect them from sand storms.  You can fit a lot of families into a pueblo apartment building.  It is easier to help each other out because they were all together during bad weather or other hard times.  In their village they grew corn, beans, squash, and cotton to help feed their families.  All the people in the village worked together hunting, farming, and raising their families.

Karlie putting her title and name on her project!

Jake and Karlie put together this neat Pueblo House with items we had in the garage!

Pueblo Construction:

• Flat Pieces of Scrap Wood
• Wood Glue
• Speckled Paint
• Wooden Dowels
• Cotton Balls
• Markers

They took flat pieces of scrap wood from various wood working projects and glued them together to create this Pueblo house.  The house has three levels.  Once all the pieces are glued together and the glue has dried they attached the house to a flat board with wood glue.  After the structure was put together we sprayed the whole pueblo with speckled paint (you can get this at Home Depot or Lowe’s).  It ended up taking two coats of spray paint in order to get it covered well.  The ladders are made out of small wooden dowels.  The top windows and doors are cut out, but the other ones are drawn on with marker.  The cotton balls represent the cotton the Southwest Region Native Americans grew in their fields.  Inside the house on the top level there is a fire and a mat for sleeping.

Pueblo house is finished and ready to go!

We didn’t paint the back of the Pueblo with two coats of paint, but this picture gives you a glimpse at the top inside which has the 3D fire and mat for sleeping.  The little storage “cubby”  (as Karlie called it) with the paper in it on the lower left is where Karlie stored her written paragraph and ladders during transport to and from school.

Karlie so proud of her project!  It was a handful to carry into school!