A teaching resource for Key Stage 2

The Stone Age

A teaching resource for Key Stage 2

Contents

Introduction ............................................................................................. 1 Factsheet 1. What is prehistory? ...............................................................5 Factsheet 2. What is archaeology? ............................................................9 Factsheet 3. The Palaeolithic ...................................................................11 Factsheet 4. The Mesolithic.....................................................................17 Factsheet 5. The Neolithic.......................................................................21 Lesson plans ..........................................................................................25

Lesson 1. Welcome to the Stone Age ...................................................27 Lesson 2. How do we know about the Stone Age?...............................33 Lesson 3. Human evolution..................................................................39 Lesson 4. The first Britons: Life in the Palaeolithic .................................47 Lesson 5. Stone Age art I: Palaeolithic art .............................................55 Lesson 6. Hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic........................................61 Lesson 7. First farmers of the Neolithic .................................................69 Lesson 8. At home in the Stone Age ....................................................77 Lesson 9. Stone Age technology ..........................................................83 Lesson 10. Stone Age art II: Neolithic art..............................................91 Lesson 11. Neolithic monuments .......................................................101 Lesson 12. Conclusions......................................................................107 Further resources..................................................................................111 Books ................................................................................................ 111 Museums and archaeological sites in Kent..........................................112 Websites ...........................................................................................114 Glossary ...............................................................................................117

Introduction

Welcome to the Stone Age ? a challenging but fascinating period of our shared human past. We are delighted that you have chosen to use this teaching resource and hope you'll find it helpful and enjoyable!

The teaching material

People often associate this period with dinosaurs, and Hollywood likes to reinforce this misconception! However, the Stone Age is an archaeological concept, and archaeology only studies the human past. Because the dinosaurs died out many millions of years before the first human ancestors emerged, there is no overlap between the Stone Age and the time of dinosaurs. Other scientists ? for example geologists and palaeontologists ? also study prehistoric periods, but they are not so interested in the human story. Human prehistory is an archaeological endeavour, so this resource is based on the archaeological evidence.

The lessons were created around a series of themes:

Evolution (lessons 3 and 4) Art and religion (lessons 5, 10, and 11) Architecture and technology (lessons 8, 9, and 11) Food (lessons 6 and 7)

These themes highlight the links between our Stone Age ancestors and our modern-day lives. Things that concerned and delighted them still resonate with us today. You may be exploring some of these themes in other lessons, so there is plenty of scope for overlap within that context too.

In addition to the lesson plans, there are five factsheets and two glossaries in this resource. Each lesson plan lists the relevant factsheet(s) and glossary terms for that topic. Finally, you can find tips for good fiction stories, museums to visit, and online material in the Further Resources section at the end.

Here are a couple of things to note before you get started:

It would be useful to divide children up into `tribes' at the start of the module. These tribes can work together and share information throughout the module. This can be a good opportunity for teamwork and mixed ability groups supporting each other. They should have a tribe name to reinforce their group identity

Ideally, each student should have a workbook that they can add all drawings and completed worksheets at the end of each lesson (see Lesson 12 for a summary of what might be in the workbook in the end)

1

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download