The Lascaux Caves: We start with a story retelling the discovery of the Lascaux Caves in France. The narrative tells of a group of young boys and their dog who, on an expedition in the local woods, discover the caves with the wonderful prehistoric paintings.
Link: Click here to see the cave paintings in all their splendor.
The value of stories: 
The paintings of prehistoric people are introduced in the context of a narrative. This helps students to enter into the wonder and excitement of such a discovery. Students are led to appreciate the splendor of the prehistoric paintings. They also learn how the paintings have increased our knowledge of the prehistoric world.
Readability level: The readability level of the story in the WER Unit allows students to work with ease when using the narrative to work on the assignments. The assignments develop historical literacy, language skills, and critical thinking skills.
Outline Web: Why did Cro-Magnons create the cave paintings?Have your students organize the answers to this question into a graphic overview. This and many more activities for students can be found in Module 2, Lesson 2 of the WER Unit Prehistory.
Have your students:
a) use their imagination and prior knowledge to answer the question,"Why were the paintings created?";
b) organize their suggested reasons into categories such as artistic, educational, social, and economic;
c) examine the story The Lascaux Caves for theme, setting, characters and plot;
d) write a similar story about the discovery of the caves at Altamira in Spain.
Sources: The WER story The Lascaux Caves is is based upon two articles published in The Illustrated London News. The first article, Lascaux Discovered (author unknown), was published on February 28, 1942, and the second, The Wall Paintings of the Lascaux Caves by Alan Brodrick, was published on April 12, 1947.
WER Unit: Ancient Civilizations - Prehistory/Early Humankind
Module 1: Understanding the Past
Module 2: Cro-Magnons and Neolithic Farmers Example of content from Module 2 Lesson 2
Students are introduced to the cave paintings of Cro-Magnons through a story describing the discovery of the paintings in the Lascaux caves. The story is linked to a Guided Reading assignment that develops literacy and critical thinking skills, and encourages students to write creatively. Stories in all the Modules have controlled readability levels and Guided Reading assignments are linked to the stories.
Language Arts: Students study the theme, setting, characters and plot of the story. They also pay particular attention to the dialogue and compare direct and indirect quotation.
Creative Writing: Students create a similar story based on given facts about the discovery of cave paintings at Altamira.
Critical Thinking Skills: Students are given an outline web and are asked to provide possible explanations of why Cro-Magnons painted cave walls.
Prehistory/Early Humankind (2 Modules) includes 5 stories with readability levels, 3 guided reading assignments, 1 readers theatre, 13 activity sheets, 2 assignments targeted for monitoring and assessment, 1 map activity, 13 illustrated information sheets, 10 blackline masters, 2 review exercises, 2 colored reproductions, 10 teacher lesson guideline sheets, 2 monitoring and assessment guideline sheets.
