Israel Castro García – uo276397@uniovi.

es

1
 Israel Castro García – uo276397@uniovi.es

Introduction
The didactic application that we are going to carry out is going to be performed for 3rd-grade
students. The main topic of this application is going to be prehistory. In particular, through this
didactic application, we will try to make the students see the immense changes that we have
undergone in terms of physical appearance, customs, and social organization. Furthermore, we will try
to get them to begin to realize the great progress that society has suffered in the last thousands of
years by working with images, videos, and some essential elements. Finally, we will also mention
some of the most significant discoveries of prehistory. To achieve this, through 4 sessions, we will
address the topic of prehistory. Prehistory occupies thousands and thousands of years, but we will
mainly focus on its first stage, the Palaeolithic.

Contents
The contents of the primary curriculum of the LOMCE in the Principality of Asturias for 3rd year
of primary education correspond to block 4 "Las huellas del tiempo":

- Aproximación a sociedades de algunas épocas históricas a partir del conocimiento de aspectos de la

vida cotidiana.

- Evolución en un tiempo largo de algún aspecto de la vida cotidiana; relación con algunos hechos
históricos relevantes. Análisis de algún ejemplo en Asturias: la vivienda, la artesanía, la explotación
de recursos….

- Reconocimiento del entorno, museos y monumentos y adquisición de actitudes de respeto hacia

ellos.

To work on these contents, together with the basic skills, we will be faithful to the following
learning outcomes:

- Utilizar adecuadamente las nociones básicas del tiempo histórico: pasado-presente-futuro y anterior
posterior al referirse a personas o hechos de la historia familiar.

- Describir de forma elemental la evolución hasta nuestros días de algún aspecto de la vida cotidiana
de las sociedades del pasado, como los diferentes tipos y formas de realizar el trabajo, los distintos
papeles otorgados a hombres y mujeres, los diferentes tipos de vivienda, las formas de comunicación
y de transporte.

2
 Israel Castro García – uo276397@uniovi.es

Timetable
The didactic application will take place from the Friday 14th of January to the Tuesday 25th of
January 2022. Coming up next, we can observe the schedule of the group of 3 rd of primary education.

Didactic Application
Our didactic application will be carried out in 4 sessions of social sciences. When carrying out our
didactic application, we will consider the following concepts: secondary sources of information,
causality and historical empathy. After explaining what we will do in each session, we will justify
why we have done it and mention the objectives that we intended to achieve with the accomplishment
of each of the sessions.

1º Session:
In the first session, we will introduce the topic of Prehistory. Looking at the curriculum, we can see
how they should not have worked a lot about the subject; therefore, it will continue to be something
new for the students and quite difficult to comprehend. In class, we will do the following:

 5 min: the teacher will present what they will work on in the following sessions. He will briefly
comment on how knowing the habits and ways of life of our ancestors thousands and thousands of
years ago can help us today to understand how we behave, how society is structured or how
humans are constantly evolving and are capable of doing incredible things.

 15 min: A video about Prehistory in Spanish will be shown to understand better the content that
we are going to deal with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw-SO3WTxAc

3
 Israel Castro García – uo276397@uniovi.es

The teacher will put a question on the board. Each student will have to answer it without answering
the same as their classmates. The 2 questions are:
1.- Could you tell a different characteristic between Prehistory and the present?
2.- Was life easier than in our days?

 15 min: Once the video is over, they will do an activity in pairs that consist on correctly placing
papers stuck on the wall to one of the three boxes. Each piece of paper stuck on the wall will have
an activity that the human being usually does (eg: go hunting with spears, go to the supermarket
for food, buy clothes in a store, make clothes by hand with wild animal skins...) All these phrases
will have to be placed in one of three possible boxes: “Prehistory”, “Present” or “Both”. In each
of the boxes, we will place whether people's habits correspond to prehistoric times, present times,
or can occur in both times. The sentences will be written in English. If they do not know the
meaning of a word, they can ask the teacher or try to get it out of the context of the sentence. Each
pair will only be able to ask the teacher for the meaning of 2 words. The following image will
show graphically how the activity will be:

 15 min: in the last minutes of class, we will check the previous activity in such a way that the
contents related to Prehistory can be reviewed and vocabulary in English. The teacher will ask the
students questions that will make them reflect: How can we live in caves? Why didn't we have
supermarkets? Is life better now than before?

4
 Israel Castro García – uo276397@uniovi.es

Justification:

In the first session we decided to show through secondary sources of information what the
subsequent four sessions were going to deal with. In this way, we would put the children in context
with cartoons (something very familiar form them) using a necessary resource to achieve the didactic
application. We have also tried to work on historical empathy with the activity of the three boxes,
making the children put themselves in the shoes of people from thousands of years ago who had
practically nothing of what we have: heating, clean clothes every day, shoes, running toilet...

Finally, we seek reflection and critical thinking through complex questions to answer (requiring
reflection).

Objectives:

- Know how to identify habits of prehistoric societies and compare them with current ones.

2º Session:
 25 min: In this second session, we will continue to address the topic of Prehistory. Today we will
tell the pupils that Prehistory spanned from the years: 2,500,000 years B.C. up to 3,500 years BC.
And it is divided into three periods. In today's class we will talk about the first period, that is
about our most ancient ancestors. We will use a PowerPoint for 7-8 min to explain to them, with
the help of images and sounds, basic aspects of what life was like in Prehistory (Paleolithic). We
will not emphasize that the scholars learn the names of the Periods of Prehistory. However, we
will seek that they know how to identify that there were changes and advances during the almost
2.5 million years that Prehistory lasted.

In the Powerpoint we will explain the following contents:

 The populations were nomadic and used to live in small tribes.

 The main activities were fruit gathering and hunting.
 Fire was discovered.
 People took refuge in precarious huts and caves
 The first rudimentary tools were made, made with broken stones. Later they improved and
included materials such as wood and bone.
 Art emerges as evidence of cultural development.
 Fishing was practised.
 The primitive language allowed the development of social structures.

5
 Israel Castro García – uo276397@uniovi.es

 After explaining all of those contents, the teacher will tell them the truth of everything they have
seen until that day about Prehistory. He/she will tell the students that before acting like in the video
we were scavengers, we walked on all fours and discovered fire by chance thanks to lightning or
through hitting two stones and seeing how a spark came out. Also, how we became sedentary thanks
to seeing how at the time of leaving a seed in the ground a new plant came out again. Humans, before
being like the ones that appeared in the video, were very different. It will be supported by audiovisual
contents to make them understand these. We want to make them reflect also about the veracity or
incomplete information of some means of information.

 15 min: In the following activity, each student will explain what the 3 most significant changes
have been for their day to day life and why, putting themselves in the place of a child their age at
the time. Students will be asked to try to answer the following question in English on the
following sheet:

 10 min: some students will share their answers. Then the teacher will try to get the class together
to put themselves in the shoes of an 8-9-year-old child and try to recreate what an ordinary day in
the life of a Prehistory child would be like. Finally, the teacher will ask the class 2 questions for
someone to try to answer (projected on the board): (2 minutes will be given to think about the
answer, and 1 of the questions can be answered in Spanish. It will be orally answered.):

1) Do you think it would be better to preserve some traditions and habits of the time? / Crees que sería
mejor conservar algunas tradiciones y costumbres de la época?

2) How is it possible that everything has changed that much? / Cómo es posible que todo haya
cambiado tanto?

6
 Israel Castro García – uo276397@uniovi.es

Justification:

During the second session, we wanted the students to try to put themselves in the place of a child of
their age from Prehistory to work on historical empathy and causality. People acted in a certain way
because of the situation in which they found themselves and because of the advances of the time. The
second question on the second sheet tries to bring this out. It seeks that the students try to put
themselves in the position of a person of the time and identify why things were the way they were and
how they have been able to change so much. The first part of the session, more theoretical, has sought
to train students and learn essential milestones of life in the Paleolithic. The presentation only lasts 8
minutes maximum so that the students do not lose concentration. They are the protagonists of the
learning process, so the part of the session where they are the ones who think and work is the most
significant. With this session, we also want to make them reflect on how not all the information that
appears on the Internet is truth or veridic and how did our first ancestors acted and evolved.

Objectives:

- Learn to use the basic notions of historical time properly.

- Know and understand the life of an 8-year-old boy in the Paleolithic and the differences with today.

3º Session:
 5 min: the teacher will ask some questions to review what they saw the day before and if they
remember what we worked on, remembering the previous session objectives.

 30 min: The students will be divided in groups of 5 and they will be given a “prehistoric map” to
discuss about where they would prefer to life in, if they were prehistoric humans. There are 4
possible caves, so they will have to choose one so they can live there. Then, one member of each
team will explain to the rest of the teams why they have chosen that cave. They will have to
include pros and cons. (next page).

7
 Israel Castro García – uo276397@uniovi.es

 15 min: Obtaining primary sources of information about the Paleolithic and bringing them to
class is nearly impossible… That is why the students during today's session will be able to choose
between 5 different objectives/animals of the Paleolithic and make them with clay. The 5 possible
figures that they can make are the following (each student will be given a sheet with the possible
figures): A mammoth, a spear, a "hammer", a bonfire, and a harpoon to fish.

8
 Israel Castro García – uo276397@uniovi.es

If they have time, each student can make more than one figure.

The school will give the plasticine, so the children will not have to buy it.

Justification:

After two more theoretical sessions they will have some knowledge about Prehistory, so they will
work on groups to reflect and discuss about which is the best cave to live in.

Children usually love to manipulate with clay, so we can try to build sources of primary
information or replicas of objects or animals from Prehistory. In this way, we will work on
multidisciplinary, taking into account other areas such as art education. At the end of the class, they
will be able to take their works of art home, thus trying to create an interest in history and the subject
in the students.

Objectives:

- Learn aspects of the daily life of the Palaeolithic through the manufacture of objects or animals of
the time.

- Learn to work in groups working with historical empathy.

4º Session:
In the fourth and last session of our didactic application, we will play a game called “Papelitos”
and we will do a mural.

 35 min: We will explain what the game “Papelitos” consists of and how it will be played. It is a
game that is played by teams of 5 people maximum. Thus, we will divide the class into 4 teams of
5 people, and they will play some teams with others. The game consists of each team member
writing on different pieces of paper 2 words that have to do with what was seen in class about
Prehistory. Then, without anyone seeing them, they will fold the paper and put them in a bag,
hat... Once the 20 pieces of paper are written and folded, each team will have 2 minutes for a team
member to take them out one by one and explain to their classmates the words. Every time a
teammate guesses right, they will add a point. Once the first team has finished, the pieces of paper
are put back in the bag, and the adversary team will do it. Once both teams have done so, points
will be counted and in the next round you can only describe the words on the pieces of paper by
saying a single word for your teammates to guess. There will also be 2 minutes available in the
third round, as in the previous ones, and with gestures, an attempt will be made to explain what is

9
 Israel Castro García – uo276397@uniovi.es

on the piece of paper. The team that scores the most points during the 3 rounds wins. At least 1 of
the pieces of paper will be written in English.

The paper game will be explained to the student using a Powerpoint presentation:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1aaJZ11u94DQ2Wxmwma3jsYNMuDRv7nA/edit?
usp=sharing&ouid=113380693816007987111&rtpof=true&sd=true

 15 min: In the last 15 min each student will write on a giant image (mural) that will be stuck on
the wall something they have learned throughout the last 4 sessions of Prehistory.

E.g.: “Fire was discovered”, or “People live in caves”.

The poster will be posted on the classroom wall. Here is an example of how it would look:

Justification:

In this fourth and last session of Prehistory, we have used gamification as a methodology to get
students, through team play, to review words and concepts (also in English) from Prehistory. The final
mural will also serve as a review as each one writes a sentence about something they have learned
from Prehistory.

Objective:

10
 Israel Castro García – uo276397@uniovi.es

- Remember content about Prehistory through gamification and teamwork.

11