Wood Stonehenge?

Being a teacher with a fascination with English history has
to be one of the best combinations around. It?s a little known
subject in America, but there are so many different projects
and ideas to work on (that?s what comes from over 1500 years
of recorded history!). One of my favorite topics to look at
is the mystery behind Stonehenge. I have been to the site in
England, and looking up at those massive stone slabs, you
begin to wonder how they were moved 200 miles from Wales to
their current location without tractors or heavy machinery. I
set my students the task of making a small scale version on
the playground one day, using wooden logs for our stones.

We had marked out the area on one side of the school site, and I
had placed the logs next to my truck, around 200 yards from
the main site. The challenge was to move them all and stack
them correctly. After several failed attempts to pick them
up, the students went to the library to research the original
techniques, and started using the small logs as rollers. I
felt as if I had travelled through time as I watched our
Woodhenge being constructed. The students gained an
appreciation not only for Stonehenge but for other historic monuments that had been built using muscle power alone.