Year 3 Bronze and Iron Age Britain: how did life change during this time? worksheet

“How bronze is made” is free to print, with no account. It is the first sheet in the Year 3 history unit “Bronze and Iron Age Britain: how did life change during this time?”, for children aged 7 to 8, and takes about 20 minutes.

Print it on A4. The child's pages come first; the answers, and what each wrong answer tells you, are on the grown-up page that follows. Weeks 7 to 12 of the year, 6 sheets in the unit.

Free sample · answers on the last page

How bronze is made

Name: ____________ · Date: ____________
Year 3 · History · about 20 minutes
Answers are on the grown-up page

Today I can explain how people make bronze from copper and tin in four steps.

A Look back3 min

1.
Stone Age people made arrow tips from a hard rock. Circle the rock.
flintgoldglass
2.
Circle the one that people made.
a river pebblea stone axea tree
3.
Stone Age people cooked in a pot made from soft earth that was baked hard. Circle the material.
claygoldglass

B Watch me, then you4 min

Ola wants to make a bronze arrowhead. These are the four steps she follows, in order.

Watch me

Mining digs copper and tin ore out of the ground.

Smelting heats the ore until the metal melts out.

Melding mixes the liquid copper and tin together.

Casting pours the hot bronze into a mould to set.

Now you

1.
Ola's bronze pot goes through the same four steps. Circle the missing third step.
meldingminingsmelting

C Your turn6 min

Each row asks about a different step. Circle the right answer.

A stone mould with a bronze arrowhead inside, and lumps of ore on a wooden bench

1.
Circle the right meaning of mining.
dig up copper and tin oreheat bronze in a firepour bronze into a mould
2.
What does smelting do? Circle the answer.
mix two metals togetherheat the ore until the metal melts outlet bronze set in a mould
3.
Liquid copper and liquid tin are mixed together. Circle the name of this step.
meldingsmeltingcasting
4.
After melding, which step comes next? Circle it.
miningcastingsmelting

Say it out loud: Which step came just before the one you are answering now? What does each step add to the bronze?

D Spot the mistake3 min

A bronze arrowhead beside a lump of copper ore and a lump of tin ore

Kit says: “You can dig bronze straight out of the ground.”

1.
Is Kit right? Explain what is wrong with his idea.

E Think deeper3 min

A wooden boat on a calm sea carrying sacks and bundles

1.
Tin was harder to find than copper. Why might Bronze Age people travel and trade to get tin? Write two reasons.

How did it feel?

I can do it Nearly Not yet

For the grown-up

How bronze is made · 2 minutes to read

Answers, and what a wrong one tells you

A

1. flint

2. a stone axe

3. clay

B

1. melding If your child circles mining or smelting, they have not seen the order. Ask what happens after the ore is melted out.

C

1. dig up copper and tin ore

2. heat the ore until the metal melts out If your child circles mixing two metals, that is melding. Ask which step heats the rock first.

3. melding

4. casting If your child circles smelting, they have gone back a step. Smelting happens before melding, so ask what the metal is like after melding.

D

1. Look for: Says bronze is not found ready-made in the ground, and that people mix copper and tin to make it. If your child agrees with Kit, they think bronze is a natural metal. Ask: which two metals go in, and who mixes them?

E

1. Look for: Two reasons, such as: tin was found in only a few places, so people had to go there; tin was needed to make bronze; people could swap goods they had for tin.

Words to use

Say“Show me the four steps of making bronze. Which step comes before melding, and why does the order matter?”

Instead of“Bronze is a metal, so it must just come out of the ground, right?”

After the sheet

Write a pancake recipe on a card with four numbered steps, such as mix, rest, pour, flip. Mix up the cards, ask your child to put them back in order, and talk about what each step adds.

Tick what your child got right in StudyDen. Anything missed comes back in a later Look back box, so there's no need to redo the sheet.

The rest of this unit

5 more sheets come with a StudyDen plan, in teaching order:

How Bronze Changed Life(with a plan)
The Iron Age begins(with a plan)
Iron tools on the farm(with a plan)
Hillforts, pots and coins(with a plan)
Bronze Age or Iron Age?(with a plan)

Every Year 3 history worksheet

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