Stone Age Workshop

On Thursday, Form III were treated to a Stone Age workshop, led by Stone Age Stevie from Historic Workshops. The morning began with a talk from Stevie about what Stone Age people used to use as tools and what they would hunt and gather. We were lucky enough to be able to hold some stone age artefacts such as fur from horses and hares, horns and antlers!

We then started our bone investigation. Each group were given a set of real animal bones and a diagram of a skeleton. We had to identify where the bone would sit and what the Stone Age people would use that particular bone for. We discovered that a shoulder blade made a very good spatula!

Before lunch, we had a go at making an arrow out of a stick, a piece of flint, some twine and feathers. We were shown how to do this and then left independently to see if we could manage to complete the task ourselves. We demonstrated great perseverance as the knotting of the twine got rather fiddly in places! We all managed to complete an arrow and were very proud of our creations!

In the afternoon, we had great fun doing some cave painting! We were given chalk and charcoal to use. After we had practise on a piece of paper, we were given a slate to draw on. The black and white pictures stood out really well on the slate! We drew pictures of bison, deer, stick men doing archery and also did some outlines of our hands.

The finale of the day, was archery! We were taught how to attach an arrow to a bow. We were then given instructions as to when to get ready, draw and fire! We were using arrows with suction cups instead of sharp points, to make it safer for us. We were aiming at pictures of animals found in the Stone Age such as reindeer and hares. This was certainly the highlight of the day and some of us discovered we were excellent archers with great aim!

It was a fabulous day and we thoroughly enjoyed immersing ourselves in everything Stone Age. Thank you Stevie, for teaching us so much and making each activity such fun!