Native American Cultures — Answer Key
Part A: Fix the Sentence
Each sentence has an error. Rewrite it correctly on the line.
1. Fix the sentence:
The Pueblo people were nomads who moved every season.
Corrected: The Pueblo people were farmers who stayed in one place.
The Pueblo built lasting adobe villages and tended fields of corn year after year — that takes settling down, not wandering, so they were farmers, not nomads.
2. Fix the sentence:
Arctic people grew corn and squash in large fields.
Corrected: Arctic people hunted seals and fished through holes in the ice.
Crops cannot grow in frozen Arctic ground, so people there got their food by hunting seals, whales, and fish through holes cut in the sea ice.
3. Fix the sentence:
Plains tribes carved totem poles from tall cedar trees.
Corrected: Northwest Coast tribes carved totem poles from tall cedar trees.
The Plains have grasslands and few big trees, but the Northwest Coast has huge cedar forests, which is why totem poles came from that region's tribes.
Part B: Fill in the Blank
Write the missing word or number on each line.
1. Eastern Woodlands tribes hollowed out logs to make canoes.
The Eastern Woodlands had thick forests and many rivers, so tribes burned out the inside of large logs to make sturdy dugout canoes for travel and trade.
2. Native American children learned skills by watching their parents and elders.
Tribes did not have written textbooks, so kids learned hunting, weaving, and storytelling by copying what their parents and elders did each day.
3. The Southwest region is mostly hot, dry desert land.
The Southwest gets very little rain and stays warm most of the year, so it is described as desert land — a place tribes had to learn to farm carefully.
4. Many tribes held special ceremonies with singing and drumming.
Special events to mark a harvest, a hunt, or a season were called ceremonies, and singing with drums helped bring the community together.
Part C: True or False?
Read each statement. Circle True or False.
1. Native Americans used natural resources around them to survive.
True False
Each tribe shaped its life around what was nearby — wood, animals, water, and plants — turning local resources into food, clothing, and shelter.
2. The Inuit people lived in a warm, rainy climate.
True False
The Inuit live in the Arctic, which is freezing cold and snowy almost all year — that is the opposite of warm and rainy.
3. Storytelling was one way tribes kept their history alive.
True False
Without written books, spoken stories carried each tribe's history, beliefs, and lessons from elders to children for hundreds of years.