The first peoples built their homes from what the land gave them: trees, bark, clay, animal skins and stone. Each kind of home fit its place.
Key idea
Different nations built different homes. A tipi could be packed up and moved. A longhouse, a pueblo and a plank house stayed in one place.
Why it works
The Haudenosaunee built long longhouses of wood and bark, where many families lived together. In the eastern woods, peoples such as the Wampanoag made round wigwams of bent poles and bark. On the Great Plains, peoples who followed the bison lived in tipis of poles and buffalo hides, easy to move. In the dry Southwest, Pueblo peoples built homes of adobe, mud bricks dried in the sun, with ladders to the upper floors. By the Pacific, nations built big plank houses of cedar wood.
Common mistake
Some children think every Native family lived in a tipi. Tipis were homes for peoples who moved across the Great Plains. Most other nations built homes that stayed in one place.
For the grown-up: Ask: "What is our home made of? Why do you think people built it that way?" Then compare it with the homes above.