Clever Neanderthals!

15/5/2018

The past week we delved deeper into the world and lifestyle of Neanderthals. We had discussed what they made their paint from last week and this week decided to think about other aspects of Neanderthal life.

So! We looked at where in the world they lived. Out came the continents puzzle map and we identified all the continents and placed a man from our ‘m’ sound bag in Europe. Also in our sound bad was a ‘monkey’ and a ‘mermaid’. We debated if the Neanderthals came into contact with those and the children rationalised that the mermaid would ‘definitely not’ be found on land and anyway as one said ‘but Fawzia they are pretend’, and as for the monkey, ‘perhaps not as they like it hot’ and we had already had talked about Neanderthals living in the Ice Age.

In the pages of this wonderful book we learned that Neanderthals were actually quite clever: they made fire. One child asked ‘how’ so we looked it up in the book and found out they made sparks from striking flint or they rubbed wood; the Neanderthals made tents – again another child asked ‘how’? so we looked it up in the book and found out they used animal hides – they hunted. And again a child questioned ‘but what did they hunt with?’ so we looked it up in the book and found pictures of different types of blades they made from flint and bones. And we all concluded Neanderthals were actually pretty smart people. Funnily enough last night on TV there was a programme all about Neanderthals and it concluded what the children had thought, that Neanderthals were intelligent, cognitive and on the money!

In baking we prepared healthy snacks of roasted vegetables with garlic and herbs – rosemary and thyme plucked from the nursery garden. The children were busy, smashing garlic, plucking rosemary and chopping peppers, tomatoes and florets of broccoli. One girl said that we could find more mushrooms in the Gruffalo’s forest which was handy as we nearly ran out!

And finally! On a summery walk to the park Archie (our border collie) had fun chilling out with the children!

This week we are painting like Egyptians!

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