Sandra Ashenford reflects on the ups and downs of her week

THIS week I have been time travelling, all the way back to the Stone Age, in the company of a class of very excited seven and eight-year-olds.

Regular readers will know that I work as a freelance writer and teacher, and one of the things I often do is to visit local primary schools to teach history sessions.

These sessions take the form of a talk illustrated by authentic and replica objects from the period, followed by hands-on art and archaeology activities.

In recent years I have built up quite a collection of fascinating artefacts from different ages, and the whole family is now in the habit of spotting anything I might find useful when they are out and about.

This week, for example, spouse brought me home a Victorian washboard which is a far more romantic gesture than a bunch of flowers.

However, Resourcing a workshop on the Stone Age was a much trickier proposition than finding objects to illustrate a talk on the Victorians.

I did manage to source some authentic Neolithic arrowheads and they are fabulous but I needed more.

Genuine Animal skins might have been a possibility but I settled for animal print fabric which the children could experiment wearing in different ways.

Stone-like beads and natural twine made impressive Neolithic-style jewellery but I felt what we really needed were some animal bones.

The Wilson museum in Cheltenham has an awe-inspiring mammoth’s tooth and tusk but such amazing pieces of history are not for handling.

I started sizing up the household pets – the ponies probably have some good-sized bones, but they seemed quite keen to hang on to them.

So I settled on the remains of the chicken carcass from Sunday lunch and duly boiled, cleaned then bleached the bones with hydrogen peroxide (it’s handy having a hairdresser for a daughter), finally sealing them with varnish.

I added some of the bones to my Stone Age necklace and discovered, via the internet, that bone jewellery is currently very popular.

I don’t think I’d wear my version out, but The children thought it was great and the session went really well.

Next week I’m doing the Great Fire of London. Spouse seems to have hidden the matches, can’t think why.