Articles

Early Man/Ice Age Project

Project Booklet (PDF)

I keep an eclectic variety of books on Kindergarten bookshelf—periodically shifting books to and from the CGS main library. Back in October of 2005 one of the children asked me to read a book entitled "Early People." This is a richly illustrated non-fiction book about the prehistoric development of man. As I began reading, I could tell the children were not particularly interested. After a paragraph or two, I stopped and the book was placed back in the bookcase.

In March 2006, "Early People" was again brought up by the student who had initially requested it be read. Other children echoed' "Yeah! Read 'Early People!' Please!" This time, when I began reading, the magic happened. We had been working pretty intensely with words and they were fascinated with the new words "Australopithecus," "Homo Habilis," "Homo Erectus," etc. They wanted to know how to say the words and wanted to know their meanings. So began the Early People/Ice Age project.

Components of the Project

• Learned about early mankind's use of tools through play and experimentation with various natural objects
• Studied animals of the Ice Age through reading and online research
• Created tracings and drawings of prehistoric animals to produce a group storyboard
• Learned about the gegraphy of the world at the time of the Ice Age and early man's migratory path across the globe
• Through sculpting and painiting students demonstrated their understanding of the time period and its inhabitants
• Visited the Field Museum's "Evolving Planet" exhibit to learn about the extinction of dinosaurs and the start of the Ice Age
• Students recorded their observations from the museum in individual journals
• Worked collaboratively on a large-scale bas-relief depicting scenes of prehistoric man