Indian in the Cupboard Activities

As a kid, I read The Indian and the Cupboard and was intrigued by it. Then as a young adult, when I had absolutely zero interest in going to see it, a movie adaptation of the book came out. When I started homeschooling and started my book and a movie with the kids, I kept it in the back of my mind, and then I took part in a challenge to create an activity to go with the “Great Outdoors,” and I’ll admit this is a bit of a stretch, but I went with it.

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Indian in the Cupboard activities

Since The Indian in the Cupboard was our first book and a movie we did, I originally had this plan I was going to come up with questions and activities for each chapter. Si I assigned our Indian in the Cupboard activities, and then ended up realizing I really didn’t want to micro-manage at the chapter level that took away my enjoyment of the book and theirs as well.

I had the kids make the same craft Omri did in the book, make a tee-pee, and then I added in make a longhouse in addition.

Batman immediately grabbed the supplies from his engineering kit he’d pulled out earlier and some paper and built a rather rudimentary longhouse that wasn’t too sturdy, but he was quite proud of it.

By contrast, Superman pulled out large amounts of glue, cardboard, and popsicle sticks and started to make a very complex longhouse before becoming insanely frustrated because it wasn’t staying together as he envisioned.

Eventually he ended up with the same type of “longhouse” Princess has here, a block longhouse, which doesn’t work quite as well as you might think.  Mainly because I think it looks more like a Greek temple.

Princess also attempted a rather complex tee-pee involving yarn and popsicle sticks, which is her go-to craft supplies, so it very much amused me to see her struggle with the improper materials for her goals (I know I shouldn’t laugh at my child struggling, but there was some secret amusement as she struggled and struggled to get this one part right).

As I mentioned, this was our first book and a movie, and I learned from “Indian in the Cupboard” to not assign a project, because they end up with very similar projects, which don’t really show me their thoughts.

I think if I’d let them choose their topics it would have worked better.  I would have gotten a fascinating report on horses from Princess, including song and dance.  Batman would probably have studied about the Iroquois because he loves to learn.  Superman would probably have built something.

Indian in the Cupboard discussion questions

This is one area, I think went okay this time around, but we didn’t explore as much as I wanted.

1. What toys would you try to bring to life in the cupboard?  What problems might come from bringing them to life?
2. What does Omri need to learn about the Iroquois?
3. What is the danger of bringing Boone and Little Bear alive?  How could Omri have protected them better?

Indian in the Cupboard snacks

When we watched the Indian in the Cupboard movie, I had these grand plans of amazing snacks, and my cooking/decorating skills got in the way, so our Indian in the Cupboard snacks aren’t as fancy as I’d hoped for, but the kids still loved eating them.

• Arrows- We made arrows out of pretzel rods.  I dipped one end in chocolate to simulate the arrowhead, and the other end was dipped in candy coating and rolled in sprinkles to simulate the fletching.
• Tee-pee- One of the key plot points is Omri’s misunderstanding of Little Bear’s lodgings and trying to make him a tee-pee.  These were made using sugar cones and dipping them in candy coating and then rolling it in sprinkles again.  I’ll admit these were not a big hit, and one sat there for quite a while before I threw it away a day or two later.
• Sweet corn- I picked up a bucket of candy corn at a local “gourmet popcorn” store to represent the sweet corn Omri gives to Little Bear one meal (I really didn’t want to make corned beef, and I’m quite sure my kids wouldn’t want it).
• Longhouses- This is probably the snack that disappeared the quickest, well this and the arrows. They’re just Little Debbie: Nutty Bars stacked in a vaguely longhouse style.
• Firewater- And finally our special drink was Big Red to represent “firewater,” which as far as my kids are concerned is Big Red, not whiskey.  They were quite happy since this didn’t count for their “one soda a week” limit.

Final kid and Mommy decisions on Indian in the Cupboard book vs. movie

In this case, the kids liked the movie much better because they liked the scene where Omri brings several different toys to life, including Darth Vader and a dinosaur.  I felt the movie lacked some of the depth of the book, partially because they relocated the story to the United States, and lost some of the feel of the book when you remove some of the particularly British feel of parts of the book.  Also, the movie softens Little Bear’s character and makes him into a much nobler and NICER person, which takes away some of the lessons of the book, and makes it blander.

Indian in the Cupboard activities around the Web

I’m trying to see how else people are using the book, so here are a couple of spots I found:

Ha! Future Ticia 2022 says, almost all of these posts do not exist anymore, so here is the one remaining post:

• If you Lived with the Iroquois lapbook

More 5th grade books and a movie

• Ella Enchanted book club
• Misty of Chincoteague book club
• Johnny Tremain book club

“Old West Indians” by Jason Verwey is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.