I was impressed by how seriously my kids took the grinding. They worked on it off and on for 3 days. Initially my plan was that we would grind enough flour by hand to make bread. However, after a few days, it became clear that we just weren’t cut out for the job. The kids would grind for about 5 minutes at a time until their hands got tired. Those wheat berries are hard to grind!

In the end, they only got a couple tablespoons of flour. This was after the kids worked at if for at least a half hour all together. I even tried for a few minutes. However, after seeing exactly how slow this process was going, I realized I would need to change my original plan. We decided to use a blender to process the rest of the wheat berries. The experience definitely gave us all a newfound appreciation for modern technology!

The real fun in this activity was making the bread. We “foraged” in our pantry for nuts and berries. We checked and found that both salt and butter were around back in Neolithic times. Then we added water to our flour and stirred in the desired mix-ins.

Since things like yeast and baking powder weren’t around during the Stone Age, we didn’t use those items. We talked about it in advance and knew that our bread was going to be pretty dense. In the end, the kids thought the results ranged from “not bad” to “literally the worst bread I’ve ever tasted.” Personally, I thought it tasted pretty good (though I did add A LOT of dried fruit to my serving).

The kids ended up adding some honey on top of their baked Stone Age bread. We looked it up and learned that honey was in fact around during the Neolithic Era. In the end, the kids had fun, all the bread got eaten, and we learned a lot. What more can a homeschool mom ask for?

Stone Age Bread Activity Details

Recommended Age Range: Preschool, Kindergarten, Elementary
Time Required: Depends on how long you want to attempt grinding. Once you have the flour, about 20 minutes to prepare bread and 20 minutes to bake.
Difficulty: Hard to grind, easy if you use a blender once you realize it’s hard
Cost: About $10 for a bag of wheat berries, though you do not need the full amount.

Materials

• a mortar and pestle
• pizza stone (or cookie sheet)
• a blender or food processor (optional, but very useful!)

Ingredients

• wheat berries (depends on how much bread you want to make, but at least a half cup)
• nuts
• dried fruit (we used rainins, cranberries, and dried cherries)
• butter
• salt
• honey

Instructions

1. The main point of this activity is to show your kids how hard it is to grind flour by hand. Therefore, use either a mortar and pestle or a larger and smaller rock and let your kids try to make flour out of the wheat berries. You will likely need to use a small number of wheat berries at a time. We found that if we put too many in at one time, it became unmanageable and they would fly out everywhere.
   
   
2. At some point your kids will become tired of grinding. Take a look at how much you got and make sure to note how hard it was to get that small amount of flour.
   
3. After your kids get tired of grinding, you use your blender or food processor to grind more flour. Make sure your kids know that you are leaving the Stone Age and entering the modern world. You can ask questions like, “So why do you think the Stone Age people didn’t just use a blender?”
   
   
4. After you produce flour using modern technology, make sure you take the time to notice how much flour you got in such a short amount of time compared to using the mortar and pestle. Pause for a moment to appreciate the conveniences of our modern lifestyles that we take for granted.
   
5. Once you have a sufficient amount of flour (I used about 1/3 cup per person), get your add-ins ready. We pretended to forage for nuts and berries, by getting them from our pantry. Again you are making your child aware of how much easier it is now to find food than for prehistoric people. Since butter and salt were also available during the Neolithic Era, feel free to include those as add-ins as well.
   
6. Have your child begin to make their dough by adding water. Start with a small amount of water the have them add more gradually until they get a consistency they like.
   
7. Next comes the fun part. Kids can add in whatever they want to make their dough. I recommend adding at least some salt to increase the chances your kids will find it edible.
   
   My daughter used the mortar and pestle again to grind up some almonds. I didn’t see any reason why Stone Age people couldn’t have done that as well.
   
8. Next bake the bread on a pizza stone or cookie sheet. Note that Stone Age people would have had to put a rock over a fire pit or made an oven out of something like rocks and clay. You will have to check your bread with a toothpick to see if it is done. We did 375 degree for roughly 20 minutes for our bread “cookies” that were about a half inch thick.
   
   
9. Lastly, see what your kids think! Some of my kids thought it was okay while one kid in particular didn’t really like it at all. It turns out Neolithic people harvest honey. Therefore, we didn’t feel bad sweetening out bread with a little honey. Everyone knows honey makes everything delicious.

Have fun being Neolithic chefs for a day!

Related Links

History Activities for Kids
Social Science Activities for Kids
Robotics Activities for Kids

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In our family, we have done the 4 year Story of the World cycle one time through. This coming fall, we are planning to start again with Ancient History. Since summer is about to begin, I thought, why not start a little early? That way we can take our time and go nice and slow through the first part of our history book.

I don’t know how successful I will be at keeping up this spirit of hands-on learning, but our pilot event was a huge success. As soon as we started learning about prehistory (the period of history before the invention of writing), I knew that I wanted to do cave painting. How exactly to do the cave painting and have it be meaningful took a little bit of thought.

At first, I was thinking we could find some natural clay and mix it with water to make the paints, but then that seemed like too much work. I wanted to keep things simple. Then I thought about just putting some butcher paper on the wall and letting the kids finger paint, but that seemed a little below the educational value I was hoping for.

To start, I decided to up the educational value by learning about some real cave paintings. First, we read Discovery in a Cave by Mark Dubowski which thankfully was available for free through our library’s digital lending system. (Libraries are currently closed due to the pandemic.) I HIGHLY recommend this book. It is informative, not too long, and the story itself is extremely appealing to children.

For a fun treat, afterwards we watched the very first episode of Carmen Sandiego called The Stolen Smile. I happened to recall that this episode described the Lascaux Caves which are the same caves featured in the book above.

So that my kids would be able to look at inspiration WHILE they were painting, I also created a few pages with pictures of real cave paintings. This printable features 3 famous caves around the world. I specifically chose ones of handprints and simple animals, since I knew my kids would be able to replicate images such as these.

My oldest decided to use a stick to paint some of his drawings. I thought this was a good idea since simple tools like this were available to prehistoric people as well.

Overall, I am really pleased with how well our afternoon of learning went. Seeing the happiness on my kids faces while they were enjoying a memorable educational experience was well worth the time invested. I don’t always tie in hands-on activities to our history, but I’m planning to try to make an effort more often!

Cave Painting Activity Details

Recommended Age Range: Preschool, Kindergarten, Elementary
Time Required: 10-30 minutes of prep (depending on if you want the overhang or not)
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Less than $2 in used supplies

Materials

• a large cardboard box (or two) for painting on
• a smaller cardboard or cereal box for creating structural triangles (optional, only if creating an overhang)
• washable tempera paint in black and red (or you could be more colorful)
• plates or containers for holding paint
• tape to hang cardboard (I found painters tape to work well enough for the activity, though our “wall” fell down overnight)
• optional: free printable educational document for inspiration

Instructions

1. If you haven’t already, first you will need to open up your cardboard boxes so that they lay flat.
2. If you would like to create an overhang with structural triangles so the child can paint on this portion, cut off the excess flaps from your smaller box.
   
   It should look like this after you finish:
   
3. Next, cut this smaller box into width-wise strips an inch or two wide.
   
   You will need at least 8 total.
   
4. Fold a strip into a right triangle and tape it together. It does not need to be symmetric, though the ones I used were pretty close. One of the angles in your triangle that is not the square angle should be the angle you would like your top flap to overhang.
   
5. Using this first triangle as a guide, make one just like it.
   
6. Repeat step 5 until you have 8 close to identical triangles.
   
7. Use the triangles to prop up one of the box flaps and tape it in place as shown.
   
8. Continue taping triangles in the same orientation onto the flaps along one side of the box. You will need at least 2 triangles per flap.
   
9. Next apply tape to the side of the triangle that will attach to the wall as shown.
   
10. Repeat above process to add tape to all of the triangles.
    
11. Next have someone help you tape the boxes onto a wall with the flap at the top.
    
    From the side, the flap will look like this:
    
12. If you are using the inspiration sheets, post them somewhere nearby so the kids can look at them as they paint.
    
13. Set out paint for the kids to use. Start with a little bit and add more as necessary. Since I have 4 kids, I decided to set out 2 plates of each color so there would be less fighting.
    
    

Now you are ready! Let the kids have fun!

Related Links

History Activities for Kids
Social Science Activities for Kids
Robotics Activities for Kids

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Recently I was reading the book Fly Guy Presents: Dinosaurs with my 1st grader. He’s a big fan of the Fly Guy easy reader series, but we were unfamiliar with the “Fly Guy Presents” non-fiction series. We’ll definitely be checking out more. The dinosaur book was perfect for his level of understanding and the inspiration for these Montessori-inspired multi-part cards.

The 12 paleontology cards in this set are almost entirely from this book. The only one I added was “ammonite” since my son has an ammonite fossil. To use them, your child can match the split cards for an independent study activity or kids can get into groups for a memory style matching game. The control cards contain all the information in one place and can be used to check that their pairs are correct.

Recommended Age Range: Kindergarten, Elementary
Time Required: ~30 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Free printable, less than $2 to laminate

Materials:

• Paper for printing Paleontology Cards and corresponding control cards. (Note that the last page of each document does not need to be printed as it just contains legal information regarding sharing and image sources.)
• 12 thermal laminating pouches

Supplies & Tools:

• Laminator
• Paper trimmer or scissors

Instructions:

1. Print the Paleontology Cards and the corresponding control cards.
2. Laminate them using thermal laminating pouches (optional, could also print on card stock, use contact paper to laminate, or not laminate them at all).
3. Cut them out.

Enjoy watching your kids become amateur paleontologists!

Click here for more Paleontology activities for kids.

Related Links

History Activities for Kids
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I really enjoy making 3-part cards, because I usually learn a lot in the process of making them. (You’ll find many other sets in the free printables section of this website.) I really wanted my son to get a sense of how big these dinosaurs actually were, so I included a little man on each card for reference.

I’ve never actually made a lap book before. Since I started homeschooling my son a month ago, I’ve come across this concept in a number of places and they look like so much fun. I had no idea that this lap book would end up being so educational as well. Not only did my son learn some facts about dinosaurs, but he also got practice writing and learned a little geography, science, history, and math.

On one of the internal pages, he wrote about his favorite dinosaur, “stegosoris.” He also glued each of the 12 dinosaurs in the set onto the continent where their bones have been found. We choose the 12 dinosaurs to feature in this set together based on his favorites, so I had no idea they would be so North America heavy. However, my son is happy, because now he thinks he might find all these dinosaur bones in our backyard. On the side flaps, we did a little extra science by learning the scientific names for plant-eaters and meat-eaters.

Another activity involved sorting the dinosaurs into their respective time periods. He thought this was interesting, because he had assumed Stegosaurus and T-rex fought each other, but now he understands that didn’t actually happen since they lived at different times. The battles between T-rex and Triceratops, however, are free to rage on in his imagination. (As a side note, if you disagree with the dates in this activity based on your religious beliefs, please see the end of this post for an alternative version of the printable.)

The last activity involved sorting the dinosaurs from smallest to biggest, which took some critical thinking. He needed to consider the perspective of the little reference man in each image to figure out how big the dinosaurs really were. I was surprised that he was able to do this almost entirely on his own. I consider this to be a math activity as it involves mathematical thinking to complete. The other sorting activities (herbivore/carnivore, time periods, and world map) also provided valuable opportunities for him to practice organizing information in different ways, a skill that is important in the study of science.

To complete these cards, I used Wikipedia and the National Geographic Kids book called The Ultimate Dino-pedia (Amazon affiliate link). I recommend checking it out from your local library if available.

Recommended Age Range: Preschool, Kindergarten, Elementary
Time Required: 30 minutes to laminate 3-part cards, 30 minutes to get lap book ready for child, about 1-2 hours for child to complete lap book
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Free printable. Less than $2 in used supplies (even less if you use contact paper instead of laminating pouches to laminate).

Dinosaur Card Supplies:

Dinosaurs Lap Book Supplies:

Materials:

• paper (for printing Dinosaur Cards, the corresponding control cards, and the Dinosaurs Lap Book)
• 6 laminating pouches
• 1 file folder
• 2 pieces of cardstock

Supplies & Tools:

• laminator (affiliate link)
• scissors
• glue stick
• packing tape
• paper cutter (optional)

Instructions:

1. First, print the Dinosaur Cards, the corresponding control cards, and the Dinosaurs Lap Book).
To make the 3-part cards
2. Laminate the dinosaur cards and the control cards.
3. Cut them out.



To make the lap book
4. First open the folder up flat. Then fold the two edges into the center. I folded the shorter side exactly to the center and folded the longer side so that it overlapped by the size of the tab.



5. Next open up the flaps and tape the pieces of cardstock onto the top and bottom of the middle sections. Make sure to that when you apply the tape to the back side, the cardstock is already folded in, as shown.


This is what it should look like when they are attached.


6. Place the cover where you would like it to sit on the front of the lap book. Then lift up the top flap and place it on top of the cover without moving the cover. Trace the line along the top flap as shown.



7. Cut along the line and glue the two pieces onto the cover. I didn’t do this, but you might want to have your child write the name and date before you cut and glue the cover onto the file folder.



8. Next, cut the carnivore/herbivore activity in half and glue one half to each of the two inner side flaps. Cut out the dinosaur pieces to go with this activity.



9. Glue the favorite dinosaur and map activity page onto one of the two pieces of cardstock. You may want to have the child write first before you glue since it might be a little easier to write on a hard surface. Cut out the dinosaur pieces to go with the map activity.
10. Glue the time period activity onto the other piece of card and cut out the dinosaur pieces for this activity.



11. Lastly, glue the “Smallest to Biggest” label on the very top of the opened piece of cardstock and cut out the information cards to go with this activity. I chose to leave the descriptions and pictures attached and let my son cut them in half once he decided where they should go. See the pictures above for how the completed project should look.

You should have all the pieces cut out and ready to be glued on at this point. (You could also have your child do the cutting, but I knew mine would get super frustrated if I made him do this much work before the work actually started.)

Note that you don’t have to cut around each dinosaur for the map, time period, and herbivore/carnivore activity, but the squares will need to overlap slightly if you don’t. I think it’s more fun if you cut around each dinosaur to make them look more like stickers.

To do the activities in this lap book, I had my kindergartner use the laminated control cards for reference. You can do the activities in any order, but to start, he took all 12 control cards and sorted them by dinosaur size. Once he was done, I showed him how to use the lengths printed on the cards to switch a couple of them, but honestly, a couple of the orderings are a little arbitrary since some of the dinosaurs are slightly taller than longer dinosaurs.

I then helped him glue the dinosaurs onto the inner 3 page length section.

For each of the 3 remaining gluing activities, my son again used the laminated control cards. He’s not reading yet, but I showed him how to recognize the words “carnivore” and “herbivore” and he sorted them into two piles, before gluing the cut out dinosaurs onto the appropriate sides. I also showed him how to recognize “Jurassic” vs. “Cretaceous” so he could sort them by time period and how to read “North America” when he was sorting them into continents. When he found the 3 that were not from North America, I read them for him and helped him find where they went on the map. (In the future, I’d like to do another set, where I specifically look for dinosaurs from other continents.)

Overall, I think this lap book was a success and I plan on making more lap book templates in the future. My son loves the finished product and couldn’t wait to show his dad when he got home. After all the exposure to these 12 dinosaurs through the various activities, he now recognizes and can name almost all 12 by sight. It’s pretty awesome to hear my 5 year old confidently saying things like “The Pachycephalosaurus is an herbivore.” If you’re interested in future lap books, please consider signing up for my newsletter to be notified when they are available. (You’ll also receive access to a page of subscriber freebies.)

Lastly, as I’ve started my homeschooling journey, I’ve recently come to learn that many of the homeschooling people in my community disagree with the dates that science has come up with to answer questions like, “When did dinosaurs live?” I honestly had no idea that an old Earth/young Earth debate even existed. While personally, I believe that the dates scientists have found are accurate, I want to be respectful of all beliefs. Therefore, I created another version of the lap book that does not specifically mention any dates. It does however still use terms like Jurassic Period and Cretaceous Period. If this goes against your religious beliefs, then I would suggest replacing this page with an activity such as: “Draw and color a backdrop and glue the cut out dinosaurs into your scene. (Volcanoes recommended!)”

Click here for more Paleontology activities for kids.

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