50 Fun Facts About KS2

Which Ice Age animal did Stone Age people hunt for meat and then use its bones to build the frames of huts?

The woolly mammoth, a hairy relative of today's elephants, lived alongside early humans, who hunted it for meat and carved its bones and tusks into tools and art as well as building with them.

Which volcano near Naples erupted in AD 79 and buried the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum?

Vesuvius wiped out Pompeii, Herculaneum and several smaller settlements, and the deep ash preserved streets, houses and even bread so well that they can be visited today.

Which boy pharaoh's treasure-filled tomb did Howard Carter uncover in the Valley of the Kings in 1922?

Tutankhamun's tomb was found in 1922 by a team led by Howard Carter and paid for by Lord Carnarvon, and although robbers had got in long ago, it still held much of its treasure and the king's undisturbed mummy.

Which metal, a mix of copper and a little tin, names the age that followed the Stone Age in Britain?

Bronze is typically about 88% copper with tin making up most of the rest, and the mixture is much harder than pure copper, so it made far better tools and weapons than stone.

Which ingredient makes bread dough rise by feeding on its sugars and giving off carbon dioxide gas?

Yeast is a tiny single-celled fungus, and the gas it breathes out gets trapped as bubbles that make a loaf light and airy instead of a hard flat brick.

Which tree drops paired winged seeds that twirl to the ground like little helicopters each autumn?

The sycamore's seeds are called samaras, and their single wing makes them spin as they fall so the wind carries them clear of the parent tree's shade.

Which small bird, voted Britain's national bird in a 2015 poll, keeps singing right through the winter?

The robin took 34% of the vote, and both males and females sing in winter because each one holds its own territory through the cold months.

Wednesday takes its name from which Anglo-Saxon god?

Woden's name sits inside the Old English word Wodnesdaeg, 'day of Woden', a reminder that the Anglo-Saxons worshipped their own gods before they became Christians.

Which Roman arena, opened in AD 80, drew huge crowds to gladiator fights and wild animal hunts?

The Colosseum was begun by the emperor Vespasian and opened by his son Titus, and ancient writers say that in its early years it was even flooded to stage mock sea battles.

In the water cycle, which stage turns water vapour back into the tiny droplets that make up clouds?

Condensation happens when rising water vapour cools, and the very same change makes the fog that hangs near the ground on a cold morning.

Which force slows a sledge sliding over gravel and makes your hands warm when you rub them together?

Friction resists two surfaces sliding past each other and turns movement into heat, which is how rubbing two sticks together can start a fire.

What word describes a material, such as wood or metal, that light cannot pass through, so it casts a shadow?

An opaque object lets no light through: it absorbs or reflects all the light that hits it, which is why its shadow is dark and has the same outline as the object.

Which muscular tube, about 25 cm long in adults, carries swallowed food from the throat down to the stomach?

The oesophagus does more than let food drop: rings of muscle squeeze in waves, called peristalsis, to push each mouthful down behind the windpipe and into the stomach.

Which metal is pulled towards a magnet, unlike copper and aluminium, which is why magnets cling to a steel fridge door?

Iron, nickel and cobalt are the everyday metals a magnet pulls on, and a steel door holds a magnet only because steel is mostly iron.

Which naturalist spent five years sailing on HMS Beagle before publishing his theory of evolution in 1859?

Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species argued that living things slowly change over many generations, an idea he had sat on for about twenty years.

Which rock type, including sandstone and limestone, forms as layers of sand, mud or shells pile up over ages?

Sedimentary rock builds up in layers called strata, and because the layers bury dead plants and animals gently, it is the kind of rock where fossils are found.

Which animal group, including frogs, toads and newts, begins life in water with gills and moves onto land as adults?

Amphibians have thin, damp skin that lets water and air soak straight through, which is why polluted ponds hit them first and many kinds are now in decline.

Which food group, found in bread, rice, pasta and potatoes, is the body's main everyday supply of energy?

Carbohydrates in those foods are mostly starch, which the body breaks down into sugar, and each gram gives about four kilocalories of energy.

Which British garden mammal sleeps through the winter?

The hedgehog has thousands of spines to hide behind when it curls up, and it hibernates because the beetles and worms it eats grow scarce in the cold; one that beds down too thin may starve before spring.

Which imaginary line at 0 degrees latitude circles the Earth halfway between the North and South Poles?

The Equator is roughly 25,000 miles around, and countries it crosses, such as Kenya and Ecuador, stay warm all year because the midday Sun is always high overhead.

Which line of zero longitude, running through Greenwich in London, did an 1884 international conference choose as the world's standard?

The Prime Meridian at Greenwich is marked by a metal strip, but satellite navigation shows the true zero line now runs about 102 metres east of it; France and Brazil abstained from the 1884 vote that chose it.

Which mountain range, the highest on Earth, separates the plains of India from the Tibetan Plateau?

The Himalayas hold Mount Everest, and they are still rising slowly because the plate carrying India keeps pushing north into the rest of Asia.

Which layer of the Earth, made of hot rock, lies between the thin crust and the outer core?

The mantle makes up most of the Earth's volume, and although it is solid rock it creeps very slowly over millions of years, stirring like thick porridge on a stove.

On a compass rose, which of the eight main points lies directly opposite south-east?

North-west sits halfway between north and west, and because winds are named for where they come from, a north-westerly wind blows towards the south-east.

What name is given to the place where a river begins, often a spring or a boggy patch high in the hills?

The source is where rainwater, meltwater or spring water first gathers into a steady flow, and even the Thames starts as a trickle you could step across.

What are the giant slabs of the Earth's outer shell called, whose slow movement causes earthquakes and builds mountains?

Tectonic plates meet at boundaries where earthquakes and volcanoes cluster, and brand-new crust is made where two plates pull apart along ridges under the sea.

Which ocean, the third largest, has Africa on its west side, Australia to the east and Asia to the north?

The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the five oceans, and its monsoon winds swap direction with the seasons, which traders once relied on to sail out and back again.

Which Orkney village from the Stone Age, hidden under sand until a storm exposed it, still has stone beds and dressers?

Skara Brae was lived in from about 3180 BC to 2500 BC, and its stone houses were set into mounds of midden, old household rubbish, which held the walls steady and kept out Orkney's cold.

Which Roman general sailed to Britain in late summer 55 BC, almost a hundred years before the Romans conquered it?

Julius Caesar came back with a bigger army the next year but still left without holding any land, and the real invasion under Claudius waited until AD 43.

The Vikings who raided and then settled in Britain from the 790s sailed from which three modern countries?

Norway, Sweden and Denmark made up the Viking homelands, and the Danes settled so much of eastern England that the region became known as the Danelaw.

Which mixture of woven sticks and sticky mud filled the gaps between the timber beams of a Tudor house?

Wattle and daub is a lattice of thin wooden strips smeared with wet soil, clay, sand and straw, and the same recipe was used for walls for thousands of years before the Tudors.

What is the name of the ancient Egyptian writing system that used more than a thousand picture symbols?

Hieroglyphics mixed picture signs that stood for whole words with signs that stood for sounds, and the script stayed in use for well over three thousand years.

The ancient Olympic Games, first held at Olympia in 776 BC, were staged every four years in honour of which god?

Zeus, king of the Greek gods, was honoured with a sacred truce that let athletes and spectators travel to Olympia in safety, and his gold-and-ivory statue there was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Which king had built an empire stretching from Greece to northwestern India by the age of 30?

Alexander the Great died in Babylon in 323 BC aged only 32, on the way home after his exhausted troops refused to march any deeper into India.

Which ancient civilisation, famous for the city of Chichen Itza, wrote with glyphs and built pyramid-temples?

The Maya worked out an accurate calendar and used a symbol for zero in their maths, and the civilisation is also noted for its art, architecture and astronomy.

Which number does the Roman numeral XL stand for, since a smaller symbol placed before a larger one is subtracted?

XL is 40 because X (10) sits in front of L (50) and is taken away, the same trick that makes IV four and XC ninety.

What name is given to a triangle whose three angles each measure exactly 60 degrees?

An equilateral triangle's three equal angles force its three sides to be equal too, which is what the name says: it comes from Latin words meaning 'equal' and 'side'.

How many straight edges does a cube have?

A cube has 12 edges, all the same length, and you can check by counting four around the top, four around the bottom and four standing up the sides.

Which 3D shape has one flat circular base and a curved surface that narrows to a single point at the top?

A cone's point is called the apex, and the shape hides a neat sum: fill a cone with water and it holds exactly one third of what a cylinder with the same base and height does.

What is the mean of the three numbers 21, 24 and 27, found by adding them up and sharing the total equally?

The mean is 24 because 21 + 24 + 27 makes 72 and 72 shared between three is 24, and for any evenly spaced set the mean is always the middle value.

A shop takes 15% off a £200 bike, so how many pounds does the price come down by?

£30 is the saving because 10% of 200 is 20 and 5% is half of that, 10, and 20 + 10 = 30, a mental-maths route that works for any percentage.

Which punctuation mark shows that letters have been left out, turning 'do not' into 'don't'?

The apostrophe has a second job, showing that something belongs to someone, as in 'the eagle's feathers' or 'in one month's time'.

In the phrase 'a shiny red coin', which word class do 'shiny' and 'red' belong to?

An adjective describes or defines a noun, and in English it usually sits just before the noun it describes, which is why 'a coin shiny' sounds wrong.

What are words like 'their', 'there' and 'they're' called, which sound the same but are spelt differently?

Homophones trip up spellers in every year group, and some pairs such as 'flour' and 'flower' began as two spellings of the very same word.

What is the name for a comparison using 'like' or 'as', such as 'her smile was as bright as the sun'?

A simile takes its name from the Latin similis, 'like', the root of 'similar', while a metaphor drops the 'like' and says one thing simply is another, as in 'the classroom was a zoo'.

What name is given to animals such as rabbits, cows and giraffes that eat only plants?

Herbivores often carry helpful bacteria in their guts to break down tough plant fibre, which is far harder to digest than the meat a carnivore eats.

What is the name for the big change in body shape when a tadpole with gills turns into a frog with lungs?

Metamorphosis rebuilds the body rather than just enlarging it: a tadpole does not drop its tail but absorbs it back into its body as its legs grow, and butterflies and beetles go through the change too.

What is the proper name for a young swan, still covered in soft down rather than adult feathers?

A cygnet gets its name from an Old French word for 'little swan', built on the Latin cygnus, the same root that names the swan constellation Cygnus.

Which word describes animals such as owls, badgers and foxes that are active at night and sleep in the day?

Nocturnal animals often have huge eyes or very sharp hearing to cope with the dark, and being awake while most predators sleep can keep them safer.

Which unit is used to measure how loud a sound is?

The decibel scale is built on ratios, and the loudest sound the ear can stand is around a trillion times more intense than the quietest it can hear.