Category Archives: Children’s books

Stone age resources

Children's books, Children's fiction, History, Websites, , , , , , ,

Here I’ve gathered a few links to resources on the stone age.

Online Games

  • Show me Prehistory - links to online games and interactive content on prehistory produced by the UK’s museums and galleries, for children aged 4 to 11
  • See You See Me Skara Brae – interactive, animated games and educational videos about the prehistoric site of Skara Brae in the Orkney Isles
  • BBC Hands on History – Ancient Britain - take a journey back to ancient Britain with an animated day in the life of a stone age boy! Plus build your own stone circle and paint a story using cave art

Books

Factual

  • How to Live Like a Stone-Age Hunter by Anita Ganerisecrets of stonehenge
  • The Secrets of Stonehenge, by Mick Manning and Brita Granström
    This is a factual picture book aimed at older children charting the history of Stonehenge. Starting from the Mesolithic nomadic hunter-gatherers, through the first farmers to Stonehenge as a modern tourist destination. It examines how the henge was built, how it changed over time and what it may have been used for. See full review
  • DK Eyewitness Early People
    This is part of series of books characterised by being very comprehensive, with big visual spreads focusing on objects and artefacts, and incorporating manageable chunks of text. The information is fairly detailed and dense so is more suitable for older children (DK recommends age 9-14) or as a great way for an adult to get to grips with a subject. This book covers human evolution, hunter-gatherers, neolithic agriculture, bronze and iron age and has world wide coverage.
    It might suit a visual child with a love of objects at a younger age. Definitely one for use as a references book, because of the sheer level of detail and breadth of information.
  • Stone Age (Sounds of the Past) Clint Twist, Nicki Palin
    This is an unusual book – a novelty book with pop up and sounds. When we first got it I was worried that the sounds would impact on its readability, but actually it works really well! Open a double spread and you hear the sounds of a mammoth hunt, or neolithic farm. The sounds are a little over the top, with lots of things going on at once. (Book requires a 3 volt battery to make sounds.) But once the sound finishes playing it doesn’t repeat so you can explore the page and read the text that accompanies the pop-up pictures. Each double picture spread has lots of details to spot. And the next spread is an information page describing what you see in the pop-up pages. There is actually a surprising amount of information, and at a higher level than might be expected in a book with sounds and pop-up pictures! Covers origins in Africa, cave painters, mammoth hunters, neolithic farming and Stonehenge.

  • Avoid being a mammoth hunter! John Malam and David Antram
    Part of a wonderfully bright, informative, humorous and engaging series of history books. The illustrations in this make it very accessible to younger readers and they flow well being read aloud. The use of illustrations, and captions pack the book with a far higher level of information than the layout and illustrations suggest. We will always checkout this series, as have found it really useful time and time again.

  • Look Inside the Stone Age Board book by Abigail Wheatley and Stefano Tognetti
    A lift-the-flap book from Usborne books, about life from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. Bright, engaging illustrations, with the added interactivity of flaps to lift and find out more behind. Aimed at 5+ and a good book for younger children.
  • The Stone Age: Hunters, Gatherers and Woolly Mammoths by Marcia Williams
  • Stone Age (Beginners) by Jerome Martin, Usborne Books
  • Prehistoric Britain (History of Britain) by Alex Frith, Rachel Firth, Ian McNee
  • My Best Book of Early People Margaret Hynes Kingfisher Books
  • Who Were the First People (Usborne Starting Point History)
  • Stone Age, Bone Age (Wonderwise) Mick Manning & Brita Granstrom An entertaining factual story book.
    Although factual rather than fiction, this picture book actually makes a reasonable substitute if you can’t get hold of our recommended book Stone Age Boy. The illustrations are bold, with strong colours and shapes, and the illustrator’s signature feelings of movement and life. It uses our favourite factual book format. A big beautiful picture, with a well written, poetic main text on the page. Plus additional information to read or not. This makes it as readable as any fictional picture book, and a good first introduction to palaeolithic stone age.
  • Hands-on History! Stone Age
    Another book combining information and craft projects.
  • Stone Age Sentinel (Newspaper History) Paul Dowswell and Fergus Fleming.
    Usborne Newspaper style look at the stone age.
  • The Stone Age News Fiona MacDonald
    Alternative newspaper style book on the stone age.
  • The Savage Stone Age (Horrible Histories) Terry Deary
  • The Secret Cave: Discovering Lascaux by Emily Arnold McCully
    True story of four boys who discover cave paintings in the Lascaux caves.

Sticker books

Workbooks

Fiction

Children’s Historical Fiction – Stone Age – Booklist with recommendations and reviews of some of our favourite stone age historical fiction.

Videos and music

One of our favourite history TV programmes is Horrible Histories. Unfortunately it has tended to fall for the old stone age=stupid comedy line. More recently as the show has matured it has improved and there are a couple of good stone age/prehistory segments.

Board Games

Cookery

  • History Cookbook – A couple of palaeolithic video recipes, plus making fire and neolithic recipes. Plus picture galleries (series of picture plus simple text) on prehistoric life, food and health.
  • Ray Mears Wild Food , TV series on DVD and Wild Food, Ray Mears – looks at Mesolithic British food, through comparisons with surviving hunter gatherer cultures.

Teacher’s Resources

Places to visit

Online Information

World Book Day 2011

Children's books, Featured

Nearly time for World Book Day. Most of the world celebrates this UNESCO desingated day on 23rd April, St George’s Day. But in the UK and Ireland it takes place in March (this year on the 3rd).

A main aim of World Book Day in the UK and Ireland is to encourage children to explore the pleasures of books and reading by providing them with the opportunity to have a book of their own.

Children receive a World Book Day £1 Book Token (or equivalent €1.50 Book Token in Ireland), which can be exchanged for one of the six specially published World Book Day books or can be used as a £1 book token. These are obtained through schools, home education charities or direct from World Book Day Helpline on 01634 729810.

World Book Day, unlike BookStart is an independent charity, financed by contributions from publishers, National Book Tokens Ltd and others.

The website also has a nice selection of book character related games which we enjoy throughout the year.

BookStart – a waste of Government money?

Books and Magazines, Children's books, Featured, Learning

In recent weeks the Government announced that it would cut its grant to BookTrust for England, then did a u-turn under public pressure.

Although loved by parents as the outcry over cuts shows BookStart, surely a much smaller scheme focused on less active reading families would be better value for money, rather than blanketing the country in baby books. Shouldn’t tax payers be paying for targeted services for those that need them, rather than doing things what most parents will do on their own anyway.
BookTrust should go back to being an independent charity – funded by donations and small grants, rather than the Government guango it has become.
I searched out every pack for my girls, usually by going and getting it from the local library as in our area health visitor checks have vanished and the girls don’t do nursery. They are a mostly a nice add on – providing the odd book – most of which are good, although one was truly appalling.
But like most people I don’t need tax payers to be buying the odd book for my children.
The public library service is far more important in my view. At a time when local libraries are determining which hours to close to deal with budget cuts I’d rather money went to the public library service. It provides so much more than a book every year or two, a couple of nice bags, a pretty cardboard box and a few booklets. It provides thousands of fantastic books in the preschool age group, baby rhyme times, and story telling sessions etc.
I do believe there should be a scheme encouraging Parents and Babies into public libraries, and health visitors should be encouraged to promote books but I don’t think Government funded books are the best way to do this.
And there are even more vital services that just don’t exist in my area – like health visitor checks. My youngest has only had one health visitor check – the newborn one. They are so stretched in our area that her one year check was by post, received the week before her second birthday (and this was before Coalition cut backs). When vital frontline services are so stretched, can it really be right to be spending tax payers money on providing a handful of books to every child.

The other side – a Mum supports the BookStart programme.

Booktrust schemes and websites for children.

Children's books,

The Booktrust is a charity dedicated to encouraging people of all ages and cultures to enjoy books. The website features book reviews, interviews, blogs, competitions as well as details of a wide range of projects and campaigns.

The projects inclde schemes providing free books to children. We have enjoyed the books and packs from Bookstart, and so I’m posting about this and the other schemes and websites run for children.

Bookstart is the name of the programme run by Booktrust for preschoolers, which provides book gift packs. Available from health visitors (Bookstart and Bookstart+), preschool settings (Treasure Chest) or from public libraries. The website includes guidance on reading with your child, games, an events map and downloadable activity sheets.

Bookstart pack for babies – for babies aged 0-12 months
Bookstart+ – for toddlers aged 18-30 months
My Bookstart Treasure Chest – for children aged 36-48 months
There are also two packs in Welsh, one for deaf children and one for blind/partially sighted.

Booktime is the scheme for children starting school. The website includes Booky’s World with booklists, videos and games, aswell as resources for families, teachers and librarians.

Contact to request books for those not accessing mainstream education e.g.: those who are home educated, looked after children, traveller families etc is booktime@booktrust.org.uk  (Please note: reception aged children in England only).

BookedUp is the secondary age/school scheme , which aims to encourage reading for pleasure and independent choice through providing year 7 pupils (children aged 11/first year secondary) with a free book from a list of specially selected titles. The website includes book information, message boards, polls, games and resources.

Home educators can ring customer services on 0845 606 4262 to register as a coordinator for the Booked Up programme and order your child’s free book.

The LetterboxC lub focuses on improving the educational outlook for looked-after children aged 7-13 by providing them with a parcel of books, maths activities and educational materials once every month for six months.  

Other Booktrust websites and projects aimed at children:

Booktrust Children’s Books – Website of information and resources about children’s and teenage books. With book reviews, booklists, author interviews, competitions and illustrator’s galleries. Featuring picture books and teenage books.

Bookmark for information, books or advice relating to disability and children’s books.

Children’s Book Week – Resources for Children’s Book Week; an annual celebration of reading for pleasure for children of primary school age.

Children’s Laureate – Reosurces and information about the Children’s Laureate.

Everybody Writes – Everybody Writes is a resource that offers classroom teachers and education professionals innovative ideas and practical resources to get primary pupils and secondary students excited about writing.

Food chains

Children's books, Learning,

A few resources on food chains.

Websites

Books:

  • The Magic School Bus Gets Eaten: A Book About Food Chains
  • Yum Yum (Wonderwise)
    It reads very well as a story, without any extra information disturbing the flow, making this great as a story book.
    Beautifully illustrated and not too simplistic in its view of food chains. It extends the concept to food circles/cycles and includes what happens when an animal dies, the fact that plants use nutrients from decomposed animals as food, and illustrates that there may be different consumers of that same plant (in this case).
  • Staying Alive: the story of a food chain

Things to think about

Food chains give a simplistic and potentially misleading view, which is more accurately shown in a food web and food cycle/circle. The missing piece of the puzzle with much of the information is that plants require nutrients as do fungi and algae. These come from decomposted plants, animals and their waste materials. The emphasis on linear chains and the misleading idea that plants are the start of a process requiring nothing but water and sunlight, obscure the vital imporatance of recycling nutrients – the very foundation of a healthy ecosystem. Importance of parasites is often overlooked as well.