Learning about Early People

Our latest social studies unit has been about early people.  We learned how they lived, what they ate and what tools they used.  We also learned about the scientists that study early people.  One of our favorite things we discussed was fossils!  The kindergarteners learned that fossils can be more than just dinosaur bones!  They loved learning how scientists carefully dig, or excavate, the fossils and put them together like a puzzle to be displayed in museums or to learn about plants, animals or people from the past!

Here we are practicing being archaeologists as we excavate chocolate chips from a cookie using toothpicks as our tools.  We even had a contest to see who could successfully excavate the most chocolate chips!

 

In addition to fossils, we learned about woolly mammoths!  We discussed how early people used woolly mammoths for food and clothing, as well as their bones and tusks as tools.  We made our own woolly mammoth art complete with woolly yarn to make it feel more like the real thing!

 

 

 

To complete our unit, we had an Early Man Feast!  We all tried a meal that early people would have eaten - full of nuts, berries, root vegetables, seeds, beans and mammoth meat (beef jerky)!  We all agreed that while we liked most of the food, we would miss some of our favorite food from today like pizza!