Stone Age | Science and STEM Activities

Main Focus: Introduction to the Stone Age

This is a great place to start for your topic on the Stone Age linked to STEM. Your class will learn about the three different periods in the Stone Age and key features and information about each stage.

The first activity your class will complete will be answering questions linked to the text. They will then place events into chronological order.

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Main Focus: Exploring Artefacts

In this resource, your KS2 class will be exploring artefacts from the Stone Age.

They will look at the images to determine what they may be used for. Next they imagine that they are a Stone Age person. They will use their knowledge to make some notes in the table shown to describe a day in their life.

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Main Focus: Stone Age Food

Stone Age people were hunter gatherers. They hunted animals and gathered wild food such as berries. They used a range of weapons and tools such as axes, sharpened rocks and carved wood to help them hunt. They also learned how to tie knots so that they could make nets to fish with. They also made baskets from soft wood such as willow. Stone Age people used fire to cook food.

In this activity, your Year 3 / Year 4 class will learn about the foods that were consumed during the Stone Age.

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Main Focus: Knapping Flint

In this activity, your class will learn all about flint and its uses as well at complete an activity to create their own tool or weapon.

During the Stone Age, humans made tools and weapons to meet basics needs such as hunting for food, making clothing and building shelter. They choose a type of stone called ‘flint’ which they could easily make into tools like axes, spearheads and knives.

Flint was shaped by striking it against harder rocks. This would cause small flakes of flint to break off. This is called ‘knapping’.

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Main Focus: Stone Age Weapons

This activity focuses on weapons used during the Stone Age. Your class will learn key information and be able to identify the weapons used.

Once that activity has been completed, your class will then create their very own Stone Age Axe using papier mâché.

On this resource there are instructions that can be followed by your KS2 class to create their axe.

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Main Focus: Pottery

This STEM resource focuses on pottery during the Stone Age and includes a few resources for your KS2 class.

Your class will create a pottery puzzle for their friends to solve and then they will use air dry clay to make your own Stone Age pot.

These pots had many uses for Stone Age people. They could be used to store food, hold water or filled with wax to make a simple lamp.

In Neolithic times, zig zags, lines and dots were used to create geometrical patterns.

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Main Focus: Cave Paintings

This is an eight page resource that explores what cave paintings are, numerous locations they have been found with pictures and a number of activities. It also includes challenges to make palaeolithic paint and sandpaper cave paintings.

Archaeologists have discovered drawings and symbols in caves which they believe were how early man communicated. The earliest found art in Europe dates back about 40,000 years!

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Main Focus: Stone Age Homes

This resource explores the houses and shelters from the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic times of the Stone Age.

Your class will read the information from the first resource and learn key aspects about where they lived and why those particular locations had been chosen. They will then answer the questions and complete the text by adding in the correct words.

Next your class will design their own Stone Age shelter.

Finally, they will use the internet or books to research a Stone Age settlement site and fill in the details using our sheet to guide them. If they can, print out or draw a picture of the site. They might like to research Skara Brae in Scotland, Mount Sandel in Northern Ireland, Star Carr in Yorkshire, Happisburg in Norfolk or Newgrange in Ireland.

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Main Focus: Growing Food

As Stone Age people developed from being hunter gatherers to farmers, they began to develop a new way of living. They recognised that some seeds and plants grew while others did not. They also discovered that some seeds could produce plants and crops faster than others. They learned that seeds and plants needed food from the soil, water, heat and sunlight to germinate and grow. They found this out by experimenting with different seeds.

In this resource, your class will look at the packaging and answer questions linked to how to sow the seeds. They will also recognise and label parts of a plant, learn what plants need to grow, plant their own seeds in compost and record their results.

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