Ute Indians

Tate had a project for school where he had to create a display this weird pyramid-y thing to show what his indian tribe of choice did. (How they got food, what they did for fun, etc.)  He chose the Ute Indians.
Now, let me interject my thoughts here for a minute... He's the student, I am the parent, so in my opinion, this is his project not mine, right?  I struggled with this assignment of his becuase I am a big believer of allowing the student to do their project with minimal parental assistance... However, many many parents jump right in on projects and mostly do them for their children in the hopes that they'll look great or whatever else.  what does this teach their kids?  With all this said, Tater struggls with self-esteem issues and I worried that if I allowed him to do his himself, he'd compare it to other kids' projects and feel defeated. As a mother I never want my child to feel this way - there was my dilemma.  So... I talked to him about the importance of doing it himself and I was there to help if needed.
This is his finished product, he did it all by himself.

 The women did Beadwork:

 They lived in teepees:

 They Hunted Buffalo:

 The children played with sticks and rocks and other nature items:

They had a "fair" at school where they lined up in the gym with their Indian projects and parents were invited to walk through and see and ask questions.  I gathered up the Littles and Jersi and we attended the fair.  There were lots of really good (parent-created) ones - and also many that were mostly student created. Tate was thrilled to see we were there and couldn't have cared less about how his project compared to others.  Fantastic! I seriously was so worried.

Afterwards we went out to the Teepee's the school had set up out in the play yard area.
(Jersi with the little neighbor girl down the street)

 The Littles and Chloe