This week, Year 3 went to Gunnersbury Park Museum to take part in a ‘Surviving the Stone Age’ workshop to tie in with our Ancient Britain topic this term.
It was quite a long journey to Gunnersbury Park but it was well worth it. We had some time on arrival to explore the museum and starting from the room devoted to fashion, we set out on a hunt for stone age artefacts. In one of the rooms on the ground floor, we found stone age spear heads, axe heads and various tools which have been found in the area.
The workshop began with further exploration of stone age artefacts. We got to touch a woolly mammoth’s tooth found locally so is proof that woolly mammoths roamed the area we live in today!
We then were taken back in time and guided outside into the park, where we were each given our own animal skin. Our first job as hunter gatherers was to hunt a wild boar. We were given some spears made to resemble what a stone age spear probably looked like, and we threw them at a wild boar (well, an image of a wild boar). We can all agree that it was easier for us than our ancestors because this boar couldn’t move!
After taking great satisfaction in hunting our imaginary dinner, we took large branches and sticks along with our animal skins and used them to create a temporary shelter because that’s how people would have sheltered from the elements in the Mesolithic era. Fast forwarding into the Neolithic era, we then practised filling the gaps in a straw roof with wattle and daub because that’s how people built the first permanent homes when farming was discovered.
It was an excellent journey back in time to life in Ancient Britain and we can each be proud to say that we survived the Stone Age!
