Creswell Crags - Stone Age
Creswell Crags - Year 3/4 - Stone Age Topic
What a fantastic and immersive trip this was. The staff at Creswell Crags were extremely knowledgeable about this period too, two of the staff were even 'archaeologists' so was great to ask them further questions. The staff were also equally as impressed with our children and the knowledge they had retained from our history lessons in school.
We had 3 different workshops:
-Visiting the caves to experience what life would have really been like, looked at clothing, tools & discussed how they would have survived here during this time, we even got to look at the type of rock in the cave which nicely linked back to our science topic on 'rocks'. We looked at the geography (physical features of the land) in the Crags and discussed how this would have looked back in the Stone Age and why!
-We got to try out 'Stone Age Art' which again linked back to our art unit in school so children were able to understand why they used natural resources and the types they used. But they got to have a go at carving on wood with flint, making rubbings, cave art with charcoal & pastels and making cave hand print using ochre and toothbrushes (sounds crazy, but check out the pics) Back in the Stone Age they would blow the paint at the walls! We also used paint to recreate cave art using feathers!
-Survival Skills ... using the tools the Stone Age people would have used we were challenged to creating our own tent/shelter. Did you know... they would also use animals guts to make string!
We then had a go at hunting (using Stone Age weapons, don't worry no real animals were touched during this time, just the poor plastic bison!) discussing how difficult it would have really been and the different tools they would have used/different animals they would have hunted in the Crags.