Kids will leap from the sweltering summer heat and slide into the bone-chilling, fight-or-flight, glacier dominated landscape of the Ice Age. A place where our hunter-gatherer ancestors considered an unoccupied cave as adequate shelter and a Mammoth bone hut as upscale. Anyone living until 35 was elderly, and every day of survival was a win.
Populated with outrageously sized saber-toothed cats, Wooly Mammoths, and twelve-foot cave bears (who could run at an incredible 40 mph), this frozen time period produced some of the oddest looking animals imaginable.
Take the giant Ground Sloth (Megatherium) that was roughly the size of a modern day elephant. It was 20 feet tall and weighed a hefty 2,200 pounds.
Or the giant armadillo of South America, (Glyptodon), over ten feet long and swung a lethal, spiky tail for protection.
A predecessor of the elephant, the Amebelodon, had a trunk like an elephant but tusks that curve downward. 
Are you ready to explore the Ice Age?
Set the Stage.
Start with this stunning 2-minute clip from the LaBrea Tar Pits and Titans of the Ice Age 3-D. The whole website is worth an exploration and it lays the foundation for reading.
Next, explore hands-on examples of Ice Age animals. I prefer a company, Safariltd, that bills itself as offering “Toys that Teach.” The figures are textured and high quality. They are also sold at Amazon and Michael’s.
Let’s get to the books.
Published by Children's Press(CT)
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This title is from a kid sought series that uses wacky illustrations to view harsh but realistic conditions of life during specific eras. Kids will learn about the Ice Age without realizing it.
How do you track the mammoth herds? Look for the vegetation that they prefer and follow the tracks and dung that are the size of your head. Even better, when sneaking up on a mammoth herd, cover yourself with the stinky stuff to mask your human scent.
The text also covers food, shelter, clothing, cave art, typical injuries, and burial practices. Most libraries carry titles in the You Wouldn’t Want to be a …. series, and I’ve used this with several tutoring students, making this a “worth every penny” purchase.
What Was the Ice Age? by Nicolas David Medina, David Groff Published by Penguin Workshop
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This New York Times best selling series is like reading the Reader’s Digest version of a Wikipedia entry except that the text and formatting are decipherable and the information is fact-checked. They are quick and easy to reference and they lay the foundation for further learning.
The illustrations give us a quick run through of the animals that roamed the earth at that time along with a healthy appreciation of what shelter, food, and fire meant to early humans. Sixteen pages of black and white photos, Ice and World timelines, and a bibliography offer starting points for further learning.
Published by Children's Press(CT), Penguin Workshop, Random House Books for Young Readers
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This is a detailed history of plant and animal life that defies words. Exquisite illustrations, high school level text, a reference book that I invested in and don’t lend out. Starting with the birth of the universe, Prehistoric Life through early humans.
The last few chapters cover the Ice Age plants, animals, geography, and humans. Each animal and plant entry is visually compared to the size a human hand, thumb, or six foot man. You will see renditions of the giant beavers who were eight feet long and weighed 220 pounds. The Australian giant monitor lizard, Megalania, the top predator, munched on giant kangaroos, wombats, Thylacoleo (a marsupial lion), and probably people.
Stunning photos of the cave paintings in southern France bring these early people closer to us. We can only marvel at their ability to survive and to create art that reveals the peril and the beauty of their everyday lives.
I have never seen so many unusual plants and animals in one book. Kids can spend hours just absorbed in the pictures. You could easily tie this in with Jurassic World movies.
Discovery in the Cave by Mark Dubowski, Mark Dubowski Published by Random House Books for Young Readers
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A nonfiction leveled reader aimed at grades 2-3. Discovery in the Cave tells the story of 17-year-old Marcel Ravidat who discovered the prehistoric paintings on the walls of the cave Lascaux, France.
Connect this simplified version of Ravidat’s discovery with information from other texts to add layers of learning about Ice Age peoples.
Provide pencil, paper, water colors, clay, any medium to recreate this world.
Ice Mummy: The Discovery of a 5,000 Year-Old Man by Mark Dubowski, Mark Dubowski Published by Random House Books for Young Readers
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Another leveled reader, the story of the Ice Mummy is equal parts fascinating and horrifying. The authors provide compelling scientific evidence about his way of life, including a reconstruction of scientists’ best guess as to what this man looked like. Experts are certain that he had a last meal of pollen and dried meat which he carried in a leather pouch and that he was shot with an arrow through the back and suffered a blow to the head either to finish him off or less likely that he hit his head.
This is a book that I just hand to a student and the content drives them.
For more information, National Geographic offers 5 fascinating facts about him. [Spoiler: the Ice Man had hardening of the arteries!]
To promote the joy of reading:
1. Ask authentic questions and listen closely to the answers.
2. Let curiosity power learning and reading.
3. Share your reactions. You would be surprised by how much you will learn.
