Prehistory Activities
Teaching Prehistory
If you’re an Ancient Civilizations teacher and need some ideas for prehistory activities, you’re in the right place! We’ve compiled our top free and paid resources to help you have a successful Prehistory unit. We want to help you succeed, whether you use these as an outline or to help supplement your existing unit! All links and resources below are what we personally use in our Prehistory unit.
Prehistory Lesson Plans
Introductory Vocabulary Activities
Just like all of our units, we start them off with vocabulary-based activities. These vocabulary activities for Google Drive are fun ways for students to practice the Prehistory vocabulary words in a variety of ways. There is a matching activity, fill-in-the-blank activity, related word activity, Quizlet links, and everything else you might need for vocabulary!
Prehistory Word Wall
Along with our vocabulary activities, we always find that word walls are a great vocabulary tool! Our resource includes 30 Prehistory vocabulary words ready to print and display on a bulletin board. Because images are included on every card, they’re also helpful for your visual learners! There is also an editable Google Slideshow included with all of the words and images, so you can edit the definitions and present the words to your students or post them on Google Classroom!
Never used an ancient civilization word wall before? This blog post will teach you how to set up, organize, and use them effectively in your classroom!
Early Humans Google Slideshow
We find it helpful to share background information towards the start of the unit, so students can make connections during other activities. This 25-slide Google Slideshow provides a detailed overview of prehistory and the people who study it, the origins of humans, early human migration, and the Agricultural Revolution. This resource also includes helpful graphics and images to reinforce the information!
Prehistory & Early Humans Activity Sheet
We’ve created a basic, fun worksheet that provides engaging puzzles for students while also being low-key. It’s an easy thing to have ready in case you need an emergency sub plan or students finish classwork early! It contains 4 activities in total, such as a mystery word challenge and map activity on human migration. So if you need something on hand for that “just-in-case” situation, you can find it here. Simply print it double-sided and you’re good to go!
Hominid Jigsaw & Timeline
As we start discussing the different hominids during the unit, we’ve created this engaging jigsaw activity. With this activity, the students are divided into different groups for each hominid. Each group will then read a passage or do an activity about one topic in their group. After they’ve have finished gathering their information from that section, students who covered different topics must find other students to teach what they found. This allows students to see the pattern of how hominids changed over time and adapted up to modern civilization.
Prehistory & Early Humans Bell Ringers
If you’re looking to improve your classroom management and help students review material, these bell ringers are perfect! This set includes 20 Prehistory Bell Ringers for Google Drive that are 100% editable and ready to use. These warm-up prompts cover a variety of topics that come up in a prehistory unit while also building helpful skills! Topics covered in this resource include hominids, early human migration, the agricultural revolution, and more!
Question Formulation Technique (QFT): Lucy
The question formulation technique (QFT) is a great way to promote inquiry skills! In this QFT activity specifically, you’ll need to find an image of the famous Hominid Lucy to display without any other details. Your students will then have to generate their own questions based upon that image. It’s an awesome way to get students to learn how to formulate and work with their own questions and ideas!
Need more information about the QFT method? Visit the Right Question Institute for more details.
Early Human Migration
Human migration is one of our favorite topics during prehistory, and we’ve found two YouTube videos that cover it very well. The first video is from Science Insider, where they discuss all the different migration routes from Africa to the other continents. The second video comes from the American Museum of Natural History. It covers human migration while also showing how our population grew as we migrated and other changes throughout time. It goes through major historical events where our population skyrocketed or dropped and shows our trajectory up to the year 2100.
Human Migration Challenge
Along with our recommended videos, we’ve also created this engaging human migration challenge activity. With this inquiry-based activity, students must predict human migration routes from Africa using several clues. Once they’ve made their predictions, you can go over them using the provided slideshow and give additional details!
Out of Eden Walk
We like to connect ancient times to modern day when possible, and we’ve found two videos from National Geographic that work well. These videos cover Paul Salopek and his seven (plus) year journey on walking along the path of human migration. The first video is from 2012 and the second is from 2016, where he is going through the process of slow journalism and interacting with the different populations he comes across.
BCE/CE Guidelines
After getting through human migration and the hominids, we like to start discussing time terminology. We go through the differences between BCE/CE vs. BC/AD and the basics of how the historical timeline works. With that, we’ve designed a simple but effective timeline activity. During this activity, you will show the slideshow to give background, then students will make a timeline to apply their knowledge of time. This resource can also be useful for helping students understand the passage of time as you get into other civilizations throughout the year!
Stone Ages Instagram Activity
Once we’ve dealt with BCE/CE, we move into the stone age using this creative Stone Age activity and overview slideshow. To start this resource, present the slideshow to give your students background on the stone age. Students will then create a selection of Instagram-styled posts for the Paleolithic Era, Mesolithic Era, and the Neolithic Era. Each post will showcase what life was like during each time through images, captions, and hashtags.
Prehistory Survival Simulation
We find simulation activities extremely engaging and fun, so we created this prehistoric survival simulation. With this activity, students will try to “survive” prehistoric times by making decisions and earning points. They must choose where they will live, the type of shelter they will build, the skills they will have, and more. Along the way, students will learn how their choices could help or hurt their chances at survival, complete with information about what life was actually like! This is one of our students’ favorite prehistory activities, and helps them gain a better understanding of what early humans may have faced.
Otzi the Iceman Inquiry Activity
Otzi the Iceman is fascinating and students usually have a lot of questions, making it perfect for an inquiry activity! We’ve designed this inquiry activity to spark your student’s curiosity and work on critical thinking. During this activity, students view different pictures of Otzi and related artifacts to make predictions about him and his life. Once predictions have been completed, you and your students can go over the provided slideshow and discuss the significance of each photo in depth.
“Iceman Murder Mystery”- NOVA
A great addition to your discussion of Otzi the Iceman is this video from NOVA. It’s a great supplemental resource to add to the topic, especially when you have a more relaxing day of class or after a test. It’s also for purchase on Amazon.
Early Humans Test + Study Guide
At the end of your unit, you can assess your students using this Early Humans Test and Study Guide. The test is perfectly aligned to the other resources mentioned in this activity guide, 100% editable and available in 2 different formats: Google Forms (self-grading) and Google Docs. The day before the test, have a review day with the provided study guide, and then give the exam in whichever format works best for you!
Prehistory Printable Bookmarks
These printable Prehistory Bookmarks are a fun addition to your Early Humans unit! This set includes four different designs that feature images and clipart that are related to Prehistory. The bookmarks are 100% black and white so that students can color in the images or personalize them as they wish! These coloring bookmarks make a great prize, a short early finisher activity, or can even help students save time when using their textbooks!
Early Humans Daily Agenda Slides
Need a way to stay more organized during your Prehistory Unit? These Early Humans Daily Agenda Slides Templates will help you save time and better immerse your students in the unit! These slides for Google Drive are editable and each template features an early humans-themed photograph, as well as clipart. They can be used to share your daily agenda, bell ringers, and more!
If you have never used agenda slides, check out our recent blog post for more info on daily agenda slides!
Prehistory Civilization
When teaching any ancient civilization, it’s always important to have activities that make the content fun and engaging for students. If you liked any of our Prehistory activities, you’ll love our Prehistory Unit Bundle! This bundle contains 13 resources and is a great way to supplement your textbook or curriculum materials about Prehistory! We’ve had great success with these resources, and our students had a blast!
As of 2024, we now have all of our Ancient Civilizations unit bundles available on our own website, which you can check out here. We believe the organization to be even better than how you can receive the files on TPT, and it also helps if your school district blocks Google Drive files from TPT!
Looking for ideas and inspiration when planning your Mesopotamia unit? If so, this free Early Humans resource guide can help! It showcases each of our Mesopotamia resources to help you decide which options will be best for your students. For more details about how we fit these resources together and how long we spend on each activity, you can also download our free Early Humans unit plan!
Are you looking for some new teaching ideas to engage your students in your social studies class? If so, you’ll love our FREE guide: 5 Creative Projects to Ignite Student Engagement in Your Social Studies Class. These activities have both printable and digital options and can work for any social studies subject!
