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Invention of fire and stone tools

Topics Year 2/3
This unit is part of Stone Age to Iron Age Britain Technology, Tools and Inventions

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Objectives

History

  • Develop a chronologically secure knowledge and understanding of British history, establishing clear narratives within and across the periods they study.
  • Address and sometimes devise historically valid questions about change, cause, similarity and difference, and significance.

Science

  • Ask relevant questions and use different types of scientific enquiries to answer them.
  • Report on findings from enquiries, including oral and written explanations, displays or presentations of results and conclusions.
  • Demonstrate that dissolving, mixing and changes of state are reversible changes/
  • Explain that some changes result in the formation of new materials, and that this kind of change is not usually reversible, including changes associated with burning and the action of acid on bicarbonate of soda.
  • Identify differences, similarities or changes related to simple scientific ideas and processes.

Lesson Planning

Find out different ways to make fire, and devise a safe experiment with magnesium. Learn about the first stone tools and make replicas from potatoes, chocolate or sugar rock.

Teaching Outcomes:

  • To find out when fire and stone tools were invented and how they were made and used.
  • To plan and undertake science experiments about starting fire and making stone tools.

Children will:

  • Know how people made fire and stone tools in prehistory.
  • Devise a safe and fair experiment using magnesium to light a fire.
  • Devise and undertake a safe and fair experiment using different materials to simulate flint knapping.

You Will Need

  • Matches, Twigs
  • Plastic boxes
  • Candle
  • Magnesium powder
  • Lumps of chocolate, potatoes and sugar rock
  • Rounded stones
  • Latex gloves

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