This term we will be learning all about Ancient Britain including the Stone Age, the Mesolithic Age and the Neolithic Age, right up until the arrival of the Romans. It’s a fascinating era filled with huge changes that shaped the development of human civilisation and we can’t wait to learn about the ancient people changing from nomadic lifestyles to settlers and farmers.
To begin our exciting topic, we started with a launch afternoon this week which involved creating our own cave paintings! We looked at many examples of cave paintings that still exist today and we realised that so many include animals and tell the story of hunts. We asked ourselves why we think people made these paintings and considered the possibility that maybe it was the easiest way for people to communicate what they had seen and done to each other.
So how did we make our cave paintings? We scrunched up paper to give it a rough texture and mixed the primary colours of paint to form various shades of brown. After thinning the paint with a drop of water, we used it to give colour to our paper and the impression of a cave wall. Inspired by the cave paintings we examined at the beginning of the afternoon, the children used a combination of charcoal and black finger paint to recreate the images of prehistoric animals and hunts. In some cases they had to use the end of a paint brush to create thin lines of black paint, which was almost authentic because ancient people might have used twigs for the same purpose.
The children were also able to use red, orange and yellow crayons to add colour to their paintings because the ancient people would have used the shavings of different rocks and plants to add colour to their paintings.
Once the paintings were dried, we could see that the cave paintings had come out very well and could possibly have come directly off a cave wall. They are now being used for a wonderful class display and the children can be very proud of their creations. Well done Year 3!
