The Stone Age and an outdoor journal

We visited the Botanic Gardens in Durham today with some friends. Archaeology students there are constructing a mesolithic settlement and we saw a teepee-style house made of logs surrounded by clods of earth and grass and a kiln. 

There is more in progress so we may make another visit. While we were there we read this book

And did some drawings of some of the images from it. 

This tied in well with a library book we have been reading at home, which has a really interesting double page showing how stone age humans lived.

We also started a outdoor journal today, thanks to a kind friend who brought some exercise books for all the children. I had bought Harry a clipboard for working outdoors too and he was very impressed - he even used it at home later in the day! We are going to use this for all outdoor work, so our stone age drawings went in there and we also looked out for early signs of spring using this Nature Detectives spotting sheet. I had forgotten how many good resources are on the website so I will be checking back more regularly! We saw hazel catkins, snowdrops, bulb shoots and primroses, although no frog spawn yet. Harry cut out the pictures from the spotting sheet and glued them into his journal. He also had a go at drawing some himself and writing the names.

I am really looking forward to some outdoor work - I am sure the journal will be full before the end of the year! I think we will enjoy looking back through it too and remembering what we have seen through the changing seasons.