Totem Poles

       Can you guess what animal my totem pole is?  It is a wolf!  For this activity we created our very own totem poles.  To begin the lesson, we first learned about what totem poles are and their history.  Then, we started making our own totem poles using an 8 1/2 x 12 sheet of construction paper that could be any color.  We were able to chose what animal we wanted our totem pole to be.  We then drew all the parts of the animal we chose on our construction paper.  We were required to include at least 2 3-D body parts to our animal.  I first drew on my eyes and then my eyebrows.  My 3-D body parts are my ears and my snout.  I also included arms each side of my totem pole.  Now, all of my body parts were drawn and added before I rolled up my construction paper.  Another requirement for this project was to use at least 3 different colors.  I chose the colors violet, blue, and green since I used red construction paper for my body.
       An extension activity for this project could be to have the students pair up with a partner that created a different animal totem pole and have them write a story about their totem poles.  Maybe they were friends or maybe they were enemies.  The story could whatever the students wanted but it would have to be at least a page long.