Visit your local hill fort

Topics Year 4/5
This unit is part of Stone Age to Iron Age Britain Hill forts

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Objectives

History

Understand different methods of historical enquiry.
Understand how our knowledge of the past is constructed from different sources.
Ask questions about cause and significance.

Geography

Use fieldwork to observe, measure, record and present the human and physical features in the local area using a range of methods, including sketch maps.

Lesson Planning

Take part in real fieldwork at a hill fort.

Teaching Outcomes:

To explore the physical remains of a hill fort and understand some archaeological methods of gathering evidence.
To undertake practical map reading and produce a sketch map of the hill fort and a profile of the rampart.

Children will:

Follow grid references and use a map and compass to find geographical features.
Create a sketch plan of a site.
Create a profile of an archaeological feature.
Start to interpret the archaeological evidence on a site

Planning

Provided Resources

Ideas on setting up a pretend hill fort in your school grounds and surveying instruction sheet.

Unit Resources

You Will Need

Knowledge of the location of your local hill fort
Maps of your local hill fort
String
Line levels
Tape measures
Compasses
Clipboards
Squared paper
Calculators

Weblinks

Find your local hill fort: Searchable database for local historical information from heritagegateway.org.uk
English Heritage site searchable for local historical information from pastscape.org.uk
Images and information about hill forts in the UK from digitaldigging.net