Afterschooling Accoutrements- Teaching Prehistory with Safari Hats

Crystal, once again joyfully shared our afterschooling plan with a group of moms and met the usual blank stares. We’re not progressing much in that department . Where we are finding success is in our children’s interest in the subjects we are covering.

As little of our afterschooling adventures including sitting at a desk we’ve found following a set curriculum not quite our speed. Actually, that may not be true. We haven’t been following a home school curriculum perhaps because our after schooling goals are not so rigorous. Hmmm…in reality maybe it’s just I think I’m so smart I don’t have to follow a curriculum…something to take up with a therapist.

Whatever. The point is, we’ve been stumbling around a bit this session (August through December we are covering the 3 periods of prehistory prior to jumping into TWTM, Story of the World.) We’ve used a variety of books and a number of approaches and find we’re…all over the ancient (Pangaea) map. A quick planning meeting helped us reassess our expectations and our children’s abilities and interests.

First, we found we CAN cover the origins of the earth, how life appeared and the way things evolve. The kids will “Get It”. However, their main interest is in what ferocious, ugly and interesting species were living at the time and how they might find some of those wonderful things to take home and live in our backyards.


Given that, in the context of one of our major goals in tackling this whole afterschooling thing….putting their learning in context as opposed to learning history and science, out of order, and in bits and pieces …as it tends to be taught in school, we’ve had to regroup.

Rather than check out a variety of books on the topic we are studying, we’ve narrowed it down to buying the whole Barrons, Prehistoric World Series . Six books at less than $5.00 each, they cover each of the major periods in pre-history: Early Life, Triassic Life, Jurassic Life, Cretaceous Life, The Age of Mammals and the Ice Age. Each book features 10-12 different animals that lived in the time period and tells a little about their habitat, food and size. Each book also includes a timeline of the whole series, easy for the kids to follow and review at the start of each book.

On the kinesthetic learning front, though we’d love to seek out interesting crafts and experiments to complement our readings, since the kids’ major interest is finding fossils or hopefully a live prehistoric beast, we’ve instead geared them up for fossil hunting. Safari Hats, toothbrushes, paintbrushes, tweezers, shovels and nets have all found their place on plastic tools belts. Empty egg cartons act as specimen boxes and wooden hammers, a plastic syringe and the launcher for a spinning top all apparently also have a place…for what, I’m not exactly sure. They have all come into use though in the yards, empty lots and parks in which we dig and hunt.

This endless digging, a developmentally appropriate activity anyway, has led to some great discoveries, though no live beasts and keeps them interested in the topic and running back and forth to the PreHistoric World books to verify that, indeed they have found an Iguanodon bone. No reason to dissuade them.

It’s also led to actual drawing and writing on the 3 foot timeline taped up on our playroom wall. It’s been there for two months with nary a glance despite Crystals’ excellent artwork and carefully labeled time periods. Maybe we’re getting the hang of this afterschooling thing after all.

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