Year 3 and 4 have had a marvellous time learning about the 2.5 million years of life during the Stone Age! (Click on the images to make them bigger.)
As we entered the hall, we noticed a strange cave man who grunted at us with a spear and telling us where to sit! He seemed very scary!
We first discovered that humans have developed greatly over time and that most of Britain was too cold for life to survive in. However, there was lots of evidence of humans living an area known as Doggerland which is now under the North Sea.
We saw lots of different skulls that told us how early human forms were very different to what our bodies are like today. We explored how homo sapiens didn't develop until long after neanderthals wandered the Earth.
We then explored how they survived and tried to create fire. It wasn't a quick process but we noticed that the friction of turning and rubbing made the wood very warm.
One of our trickier tasks was to work out strategies to catch a mammoth without it harming us. It was harder than we first thought! Lots of teamwork and careful strategy was required to trap the mammoth in the marsh.
As the Stone Age went on, homo sapiens developed ways to help them to kill animals. These included spears and bow and arrows. We found out that it was rare to kill baby deer, mothers or stags for meat. They would only kill the mature female deer. Mr Earle, Mrs Wilkinson and some of the children were saved. Sadly, Miss Wylde had to be killed!
Once the animal had been killed, we needed to discover which bits were used for food and which parts were used for clothing. The yuckiest bit that we found out was that they generally ate the eyeballs of the animal first!
We then had the chance to explore the tools they would have used in greater depth. We noticed that different shaped flints were used for different purposes. Some were used for cutting, others were used to scrape the hide of the animals and some were used as an axe.
We even managed to see some mammoth hair!
Can you work out what some of these tools were used for?
We also took part in a Stone Age quiz - we needed to scan and explore the resources to try and find as many answers as we could. Everyone found out lots of interesting facts that they never knew before!
Later on in the day, we discussed the mysteries of Stonehenge and how we still don't know what it was truly built for. However, we did find out that people used to travel for hundreds of miles so they could be cured from diseases and ailments.
We then had the opportunity to try and build our own Stonehenge - a lot of communication and problem solving was needed to make the structure work successfully!
We also learnt that ancient people also used sacrifices to help wish for good weather or for crops to be successful. Because we had entered the Bronze Age, we now had a sword to sacrifice a child with! Sometimes just the tool was used as a sacrifice - it was usually put in a river or a stream.
Knowledge by the Iron Age had progressed. Rather than rubbing wood together, they now used iron and a sharp flint to make a spark. All of the teachers managed to make sparks which could have been used to make a fire.
Tools had also progressed a lot! We discovered the swords were very heavy - even if you tried to hold them with both hands. We also looked at different weapons that had been designed to protect people from the enemy.
We finished our day by creating a timeline of all of the things we had found out and the different eras that each tool had come from.
A really fun but informative day was had by all!
