Invention of pottery and ground stone tools

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

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.

Design and Technology

  • Use research and develop design criteria to inform design.
  • Generate, develop, model and communicate their ideas.
  • Select from and use a wider range of tools and equipment to perform practical tasks.
  • Select from and use a wider range of materials and components.

Lesson Planning

Learn about the invention of pottery and make replica pots. Devise an experiment to test how long it takes to polish a stone axe.

Teaching Outcomes:

  • To find out when pottery was invented and how it was made.
  • To plan and undertake a science experiments about ground stone tools.
  • To design and make a replica pot.

Children will:

  • Work out how people made pottery in prehistory.
  • Use a specific pottery making technique to make a replica Neolithic vessel.
  • Undertake an experiment about grinding stone tools.

Provided Resources

  • Pottery
  • Three methods of making pottery vessels
  • Grinding a royal icing axe on sand-paper experiment sheet
  • Experiment reporting sheet

You Will Need

  • Clay
  • Flint
  • Greenschist
  • Sand-paper
  • Royal icing
  • Stopwatches

Weblinks

There are no weblinks needed for this session.