The Stone Age for Kids

The Stone Age was the period of time when people made and used stone tools and before they began working with metal. The Stone Age is part of prehistory because it is before we have any written records.

The Stone Age period includes our early ancestors through to modern Homo Sapiens (our species.) During this time the Neaderthal people also lived. 

People ate nuts and berries and hunted animals for meat and skins. They lived in caves or shelters made from animal bones and skins. 

The Stone Age refers to a long period of time from around 2.5 million years ago until around 5000 years ago. There isn't an exact date range. 

The Stone Age refers to a long period of time which gets divided up into:

• Paleolithic
• Mesolithic
• Neolithic

Play the video for a funny overview of the Stone Age in song.  

These short videos are a fun way for kids to learn a bit about stone age facts. They use humor that will appeal to small kids (verified :-)

Through the Horrible Histories clip we discovered the wonderful Horrible Histories series from the BBC. 

In the UK you can buy a Horrible Histories DVD set which covers the Stone Age and the rest of history too. You can get Horrible Histories in the US, but you'll need to be able to play non-US DVDs. 

Cave painting is one of the things we most associate with Stone Age. The cave paintings at Lascaux in France were discovered by four schoolboys in 1940. A reproduction of the caves has been created next door so you can visit, but the original paintings are protected from further deterioration. 

Cave paintings show that Stone Age people had culture. Cave paintings have been found around the world. 

We watched this video of the recreated cave paintings at Lascaux and then my son created his own artwork in the same styles. Pastels work really well for this. 

We were very interested to find that archaeologists think that children made cave paintings as well as adults. 

Stone Age Children's Cave Paintings
There is archaeological evidence that young children made cave paintings, just like kids today love to create artwork.

Stone Age creatures included huge animals Woolly Mammoths, Saber-toothed cats including Smilodon, lions, mega bears (cave bears) and hyenas. These animals had been around since before the stone age and lived alongside stone age people when they came along.

There were also lots of smaller animals including smaller mammals, birds and a variety of reptiles and insects. Lots of sea-creatures too. 

But it's the big land mammals that are most associated with the stone age. 

My son loved this video which shows dead Mammoth being fought over by a stone age lion, wolves and a cave bear!

We love the BBC 'Walking with ...' documentaries and our kids have been watching them since they were tiny. 

The presentation of lots of interesting facts along with amazing recreations of prehistoric scenes works really well. 

The box set is usually best value and includes Walking with Cavemen and Walking with Prehistoric Beasts (this included a lot of animals that were around during the Stone Age.)

We chose the Best Book of Early People as a kids book to learn about the Stone Age. 

My five year old son has been poring over it since it arrived. It has a series of double page picture spreads featuring scenes from the Stone Age (plus a little bit on the Bronze Age and Iron Age.)

It also has lots of factual snippets to accompany the pictures. 

The Savage Stone Age is one of Terry Deary's awesome Horrible Histories books. It's packed with facts presenting in a way that kids, boys particularly will find very appealing. 

It's silly and gruesome. The book has 128 pages and it's a great book for kids who are confidently reading by themselves. 

We are loving John Grant's Stone Age series of books featuring Littlenose the Neanderthal who lives in the stone age. 

These are fictional books which each include several short stories about Littlenose. They are packed with information about the Stone Age era (though liberties are definitely taken for the sake of a good story!)

The Littlenose books are perfect chapter books for kids to read themselves or for parents to read to younger children. I'm reading them to my 5 and nearly 4 year old and they love them.