New
New
Year 3

How bronze changed life in Britain

I can explain how the making and use of bronze changed life in Britain.

New
New
Year 3

How bronze changed life in Britain

I can explain how the making and use of bronze changed life in Britain.

Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. Bronze was harder, longer lasting and could be made sharper than wood or stone tools.
  2. This meant that larger areas of wildwood could be cleared for agriculture and more crops could be planted.
  3. This meant that a surplus could be traded or stored in case of disaster.
  4. Populations also grew as the land could support more people, who were needed for increased farming.
  5. Archaeologists have found many examples of Bronze Age hoards in Britain. These hoards show how bronze was used.

Common misconception

Pupils might think that everything was made from bronze during the Bronze Age.

Items such as jewellery were often made from gold.

Keywords

  • Hoard - a hoard is a buried store of goods

  • Agriculture - agriculture is the process of farming

  • Wildwood - wildwood a is naturally growing forest area

  • Surplus - a surplus is the amount left over of something when you have more than you need

Explore the concept of trading goods through role play. Children could take on different roles such as farmer, metalworker, miner and swap pictures of resources such as food for metal (children could draw pictures of the items to swap).
Teacher tip

Content guidance

  • Depiction or discussion of violence or suffering

Supervision

Adult supervision recommended

Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2024), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

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6 Questions

Q1.
When did the Bronze Age begin in Britain?
approximately two million years ago
Correct answer: approximately four thousand years ago
approximately two thousand years ago
Q2.
What material did people begin making objects from in the Bronze Age?
Correct answer: bronze
silver
plastic
wood
Q3.
__________ is made by melding together copper and tin?
Correct answer: Bronze
Gold
Silver
Q4.
Starting with the first stage, put the stages of making bronze objects into the correct order.
1 - mining
2 - smelting
3 - melding
4 - casting
Q5.
The process of heating up ores to extract the metal is called __________.
mining
Correct answer: smelting
melding
casting
Q6.
The process of mixing two metals together is called __________.
mining
smelting
Correct answer: melding
casting

6 Questions

Q1.
What is a buried collection of artefacts called?
Correct answer: a hoard
a crowd
a range
Q2.
What happened to the size of the population of Britain during the Bronze Age?
It got smaller.
Tt stayed the same.
Correct answer: It got bigger.
Q3.
Which of these is a surplus?
Correct answer: when you have more than you need
when you have less than you need
when you have the exact amount you need
Q4.
Why was bronze better for making tools than stone?
It was softer.
Correct answer: It was stronger.
It was dull.
Correct answer: It could be made sharper.
Correct answer: It was long-lasting.
Q5.
Agriculture is the process of __________.
building
Correct answer: farming
hunting
mining
Q6.
What happened to the much of the wildwood during the Bronze Age?
It was destroyed by the bad weather.
Correct answer: It was chopped down to make space to grow food.
It was chopped down to build towns and cities.
It grew and expanded naturally.

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