UG: Boy Genius of the Stone Age and His Search for Soft Trousers

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Imagine that you swapped lives with Ug. Could you write a story about your experiences in the Stone Age? What might Ug think of modern times?

Raymond Briggs is a widely celebrated author and illustrator who is well known for his emotionally developed and beautiful work for children's fiction. Raymond Briggs began his career in advertising before beginning to illustrate children’s books. Other stories illustrated by Raymond Briggs include: Why doesn’t Ug’s boat float on the water? Can you find out about materials that float? Could you carry out an experiment to find out how much weight different materials will hold while floating? Introduce your students to Raymond Briggs' 'Ug: Boy Genius of The Stone Age' with our range of lovely illustrated resources and teaching aids. Ug and his parents live in the Stone Age. And that means stone blankets, stone-cold food, an even colder cave and, worst of all, hard stone trousers! Come along with Ug as he tries to show his family a softer way of life by showing them a few changes to make him and his family more comfortable in their Stone Age home. From balls to boats and his search for soft trousers, this is a wonderful story to share with your young students. Ug wants to bend the stream so that it is nearer to his cave. Can you find out how people use rivers and streams?The story mentions ‘The Stone Age’ and ‘The Iron Age’. What terms would you use to describe the period of time that we are living in now? Ug’s mum doesn’t like the exciting new words that Ug uses (e.g. nice and terrific). Can you think of other amazing words that Ug’s mum wouldn’t like to hear?

Look at other comic strips and discuss their features (e.g. caption boxes, speech / thought bubbles). How are they different from other types of text?As it explains in the text, people in the stone age didn’t have minutes or hours. How would you explain this concept to them? Ug tries to invent lots of new objects. Can you find out about famous inventors and the things that they invented? How do these objects affect our lives today? In the story, Ug’s family only have mud, bushes and stones. Can you make a list of the materials that we can use today? How would you describe each material? How are different materials used? Why are certain materials used for specific purposes? I did not realise how long this book actually was. It took us the best part of 40 minutes but it was the first day and EVERYTHING took longer. The children learned LOADS from this. What a great read! We will be reading it for the next two weeks to gain ideas on our 'failed inventions' story. SO yeah this is going on my 'currently reading' status. Sorry. Ug’s mum tells him to go and play with stones. Can you make up some (safe) games that could be played with stones?