Online archaeology and history inspired activities to download and do at home

If you’re stuck at home with kids who are mad for archaeology and history, here’s a selection of activities that are free to view online and/or download and do at home. Let me know any more that you know of in the comments and I’ll add them to the post. I’m starting by listing resources I’ve contributed to.

Forget the name of this page – Outdoor Archaeological Learning – and think of it as indoor archaeological learning. There are three booklets on this page. The first is aimed at teachers and educators but there are some cut out and make models of archaeological sites and a timeline activity you could do with cut-out Lego figures through the ages.

Into the Wildwoods and The First Foresters are focused on the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods of Scotland and have characters created by Alex Leonard who could be the basis of story-telling. There are also map-making and drawing activities and lots of illustrations and photographs inside.

 

 

Teaching History in 100 Objects was a British Museum project to support the new history curriculum in English schools from Key Stages 1-3 so the topics are linked to that. This is aimed at teachers but there are lots of objects to look through (not just 100 – each focus object links to many more). See if there’s an object that links to a topic your child/ren have been studying/are interested in. There are objects from Palaeolithic handaxes to a badge from Jesse James’ bid for the Democratic nominee in the presidential elections of 1984.

Hamilton Trust, who create blocks of work for teachers to use in the classroom, have made two of their topics free to use – Dinosaurs and fossils (which includes stuff on human evolution) and Early Islamic Civilisation. Incidentally, they are also creating free home packs for maths and English for each year group so keep an eye on their website. You can become a friend to access their other resources for £33 a year.

Resources from around the internet

The Young Archaeologist’s Club website has loads of activities to do on its website, including making Viking flatbread, doing your own cave art, making archaeological fake poo for your kids to excavate and so much more.

 

 

 

I absolutely love the comics of Dr Hannah Sackett on Prehistories. They are beautifully illustrated and wittily written. They are free to read online or download and print.

 

Paper models of Neolithic houses have been created by Jools Wilson of Bears Get Crafty to download for free.

 

 

 

 

 

English Heritage has paper Bronze Age roundhouse models to download and make.