Studying the Paleolithic

When we were in Australia, Jack and I spent about three hours per day in the park near Mormor's house.

A lot of that time was spent playing "hunter gatherer". We slept in "trees", woke up and went off "hunting". We speared various large animals and then dragged them to our "camp fire" and cooked and ate them. (Which was nowhere near the "trees" we slept in.)
It went on and on and on, and really seems to capture Jack's imagination. That suggested to me that it was time to start collecting materials for our first History unit -- life in the paleolithic.

Jack climbing a tree

(We had previously done a more general Dinosaurs theme, but I want to set a precedent of thoroughness now that we're studying human history.)

The paleolithic, of course, covers a very long time, and while life didn't change as fast as it did at the start of the industrial revolution, it did change, so I am trying to collect books that reflect that change.

In the meanwhile, how we got here was that during Jack's Dinosaur phase, he loved Walking with Dinosaurs and so we got him the post-dinosaur video Walking with Beasts. In it, we saw Australopithecus. That intrigued Jack, and Mamma was on her way! From there, Walking with Cavemen was a natural as was the discussion of how we went from Australopithecus to homosapiens, to today.

Videos
Walking with Cavemen - a documentary style depiction of homonid evolution from Australopithecus to modern Homo sapiens.
The Real Eve - the a documentary style story of mitochondrial Eve -- the most recent female common ancestor of all humans -- and how her decedents came to populated the world
Ice Age Columbus - the story of the very first explorers to discover the continent that came to be known as the Americas.
Land of Lost Monsters- the emiogration of the very first humans into New Zealand, Australia, and the Americas and what they found there.

Picture Books:
Walking with Cavemen by John Lynch and Lucy Barrett
Land of Lost Monsters: Man against Beast: The Prehistoric Battle for the Planet by Ted Oakes
Journey from the Dawn: Life with the World's First Family by Dr Donald Johanson and Kevin O'Farrell

The Best book of Early People by Margaret Hynes
The Stone Age News by Fiona Macdonald
Magic Tree House: Sabertooths and the Ice Age by Mary Pope Osborn and Natalie Pope Boyce
Cartoon History of the Universe: Volume 2 Sticks and Stones by Larry Gonick

Fiction:
Time of the Bison by Ann Turner
Small Blue Blue Bead by Byrd Baylor Schweitzer
The First Painter by Katherine Lasky

Read-aloud books
The Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer pages 21-27
The Story of US by Joy Hakim Book 1, pages 16-20
The DK History of the World pages 16-28

I'm still hunting for a chapter book aimed at the age 5 to 10 crowd that would be suitable. So far, no luck. But this should keep us busy for the summer.

The plan, so far, is to move on to the Neolithic and the Mesopotamian cultures in the fall...fortunately, there seems to be *a lot* more about that for the very young.