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New Shape 'n Race: Based on a Historic American Indian Gamepiece/Game

Use the adaptable lesson plan questions to put your group into the moccasins of early American Indians while they shape their snakes.  Compare making snowsnakes with making arrowheads.  Ask: If you were a hungry American Indian long ago, how would you "get dinner?"  After discussion ask: Could you "get dinner" with just one arrowhead?   You will see appreciation for those of the old culture grow.

Your group will explore old American Indian designs of the Menomonee and Chippewa, for example, to paint on their racers. And you can have the tribes  race each other as well as individually. Or use snake specie names like the Blue Racers against the Vipers. Expand the contest and have many winners.  Add a design contest. Add a hunt/accuracy contest. In this game, players do their own racing so they'll have to practice their throwing skills as American Indians honed their hunting skills long ago.  As excitement for the race builds, it moves your group through the unit. How do I know? I worked for ten years as a museum educator and have played this game with thousands of groups. You don't need a snow covered path to play - a plastic "ice" path works outside and a gym or hallway floor works inside. 

Blue Racer is one of the fastest snakes in North America traveling up to five miles an hour.

On game day, keep waiting players occupied with a display of real arrowheads, have a hands on chipping stone station, invite the American Indian tribe in your area to show and explain the uses of animal hide long ago.  Celebrate the end of the event with a Pow Wow featuring American Indian food, music, and dance.  To reinforce your unit, have your group create a display of the game pieces. Put it in the front hall of your school. Your group will talk about this event for weeks! 

This living history experience is based on the 1896 publication, "The Menomini Indians: by Dr. Walter J. Hoffman that was featured in the Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, now known as the Smithsonian Institution. You can see an updated version of Dr. Hoffman's sketch (updated) of a real 1800's Wisconsin Menomonee Indian throwing a snowsnake at the top of this page used as a logo. 

Long ago American Indians living in the snow belts of North America made gamepieces - snowsnakes - to play the game - snowsnake. The game's objective is distance: Whoever propels his snake down a snow covered path the farthest a certain number of times wins the prize.  Early American Indians played the game for entertainment as well as to sharpen their hunting skills. To see snowsnakes in the online collection of the Division of Anthropology  American Museum of Natural History, click collections database, click North American Ethnographic Collection map, key in snow snake and search. Thirteen photos of snow snakes will apprear. You can also see the original catalogue pages. To go to AMNH now click here.

Everything your group needs to play the game is in the Snowsnake Derby Racer Kit, and this website is the only place you can buy it.  Each kit contains identical (natural) materials to make one 20" long gamepiece, instructions to make a snowsnake and to play the game of snowsnake. The lesson plan includes concepts of natural material use, tool making, importance of hunting, regard for the environment, and ownership beliefs.  $5 each kit. Minimum order of 4. Live this history with your group. You'll be glad you did! To order your Snowsnake Derby Racers now, click here.