Bedrock Books: The Artists of the Caves

• It is thought that the oldest cave painting ever discovered was made by a Neanderthal over 64,000 years ago.
• The style of cave art changes throughout the years
• Cave art has been found on every continent (except for Antarctica!)
• Cave art was commonly created using natural pigments (colours) like ochre, charcoal and even burnt bones!

This topic appears in one of our early blocks, aimed at learners aged roughly 8 or 9. During this topic learners will encounter lots of challenging tier 2 vocabulary and many multi-modal activities that encourage them to identify synonyms and antonyms, associate vocabulary with images, use the vocabulary within sentences and free writing activities.

The obvious choice here, the cultural capital gained through this topic has the potential to help learners unlock knowledge across other areas of the history curriculum at KS2, for example in topics looking at the Stone Age.

This topic provides learners with a new view on what art can look like and how art has changed throughout time. Not to mention exposing learners to subject-specific vocabulary that they might come across in their art lessons; mural, daub, sculpt...