Ramsgate Arts Primary pupils become fierce Stone Age cave dwellers

Pupils explore the Stone Age

Young warriors have gone wild about their learning at Ramsgate Arts Primary School.

The Year 3 group turned back time as they became fierce cave dwellers for the day for a lively start to their exploration of the Stone Age.

Dressed in ‘animal’ skins and brandishing clubs, they delved into history to find out amazing facts about the daily lives of their prehistoric ancestors.

Among a range of activities they learnt about flint-knapping and how Stone Age people used this process to sharpen flint and create tools and weapons. To understand how the process worked and how tricky it was they tried their hand at knapping using bars of soap – it wasn’t easy.

They also learned about one of the world’s greatest monuments – the Neolithic majesty of Stonehenge. They discovered what it looks like, its location and about its possible uses during the Stone Age.

Then pupils were challenged to build it with their ‘talk partners’ using biscuits for the block work and icing to glue their structures together.

The Stone Age day was completed with the team’s Art To Start initiative with parents and carers joining in to create cave paintings, featuring images of themselves. The completed works now adorn classroom walls.

Year 3 teachers Kiki Amin and Alice Mann said: “What a lively way to begin our Stone Age topic. The children looked terrific in their outfits and were immediately enthusiastically engaged in learning different aspects of the subject.”

Head of School Nick Budge agreed. He added: “So much effort went into creating the right platform to launch this topic – the children’s costumes looked great and our staff also dressed the part too. The range of activities were fascinating and were a perfect lead in for what will be a memorable learning adventure.”

Stone Age fact file: The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 3,000 BC.