celts homework help

• Create new account
• Reset your password

Register and get FREE resources and activities

Ready to unlock all our resources?

Who were the Celts?

The name ‘Celts’ (pronounced ‘kelts’) is used to describe all of the people who lived in Britain and northwest Europe during the Iron Age – from 600 BC to 43 AD, which is when the Romans arrived.

The Celts were a very advanced society. For instance, they learned how to make weapons from iron, which is why we call the time they lived in the “ Iron Age ”. In Britain, the Celts settled in areas such as Cornwall and Wales .

Top 10 facts

• The Celts lived during the Iron Age , from about 600 BC to 43 AD . This is the time when iron was discovered and used.
• The Iron Age ended when the Romans invaded Britain and set up their own civilisation and government.
• The people who lived in Britain during the Iron Age weren’t called ‘Celts’ until the 1700s. The name is used to describe all the different tribes that lived in Britain then.
• There were three main branches of Celts in Europe – Brythonic , Gaulic and Gaelic . Brythonic Celts (Britons) settled in England.
• The Celts who settled in England were split into many different tribes, each ruled by a king or queen.
• The Celts believed in many different gods who affected every part of everyday life. Druids , who were priests in Celtic society, tried to figure out what the gods wanted.
• Men and women in Celtic times usually wore long tunics with different accessories, such as coats, capes or belts.
• Most Celts were farmers , and they lived in houses that were round instead of square.
• In battle , Celts mainly fought with swords and spears, and they used long shields to protect themselves.
• Some people can still speak Celtic languages such as Welsh and Gaelic .

The Celts timeline

• 335 BC Celtic tribes signed a peace treaty with Alexander the Great, ensuring peace between the Celts and the Greeks
• 70 BC Druids arrived in Britain

Boost Your Child's Learning Today!

• Get a tailored learning plan for your child
• English & maths resources added each week
• Interactive & printable activities

Did you know?

• The Iron Age is named for the fact that people first started using iron to make weapons and tools. Before this, they’d have used bronze .
• Brythonic (also called Britons), who lived around modern-day Cornwall and Wales
• Gaelic (also called Gaels), who were based in Ireland , Scotland and the Isle of Man
• Gaulic (also called Gauls), who lived across modern-day France , Belgium, Switzerland and northern Italy
• The Celts wore brightly coloured clothing, and made fabric dyes from berries, plants and even seaweed. Dyeing was something that only women could do – it was considered bad luck to dye cloth if a man was around!
• The Celts lived in round houses with thatched roofs – they were made in the shape of circles, rather than with four walls.
• Many Celts were farmers, so they grew their own food and learned where they could gather nuts, berries and honey around their village.
• The Celts also kept their own cows, chickens and other livestock – sometimes the animals would come into their homes at night, as they didn’t have their own stable.
• Groups of houses built on top of hills were called hill forts – people living there could see if any enemies were coming just by looking out over the valleys, and could build strong walls around their hill to help defend it.
• Some people can still speak languages that the Celts spoke, Welsh and Gaelic .

Celts gallery 

• A map of Iron Age Europe
• A roundhouse reconstruction at the Ancient Technology Outdoor Education Centre in Cranbourne, Dorset (Photo Credit: Clive Perrin)
• Celtic coins
• A real Iron Age Celtic sword
• A Celtic knot design
• A reconstructed Celtic village in Gabreta, Germany
• The "Castro de Barona" in Spain, the excavated site of an old Celtic fortress settlement

The body of an Iron Age Celt was found in a bog in Cheshire in 1984. He is called the Lindow Man , and could have died as part of a sacrifice to the gods worshipped at that time.

In Celtic society, people could tell how wealthy you were just by looking down at your feet.  Shoes  would have taken a lot of time and skill to make, so only higher class people would be able to afford them. Celtic women usually wore two types of garments called the léine (a long tunic) and the brat (a cloak). Celtic men also wore léines and brats, but they’d also sometimes wear an inar (a jacket) over truis  (trousers or shorts).

While you often hear about people in past times not taking very good care of themselves, the Celts liked to stay clean, smelling nice, and make an effort with their appearance. Archaeologists have found beautiful jewellery such as torc necklaces, razor blades for shaving, combs and hair accessories that tell us about what sorts of things the Celts would have used.

Celtic priests were called Druids , and the Celts believed that they understood nature and the world around them so well that they predict the future from it. Druids also acted as judges in Celtic society, and even doctors; they knew a lot about the healing properties of plants, and which ones would help someone feel better if they were ill or hurt. The Celts believed that there were gods for every part of life, and that the Druids were the ones who understood how to speak to them and interpret what they wanted.

If there was a battle in Celtic times, anyone could be asked to fight – women as well as men. Celts used iron spears and swords, and they also carried long shields made from wood or iron. Some Celtic tribes would use blue paint to draw designs on their skin before going to battle.

A famous Celt is Warrior Queen Boudicca , who led an uprising against the Romans when they invaded Britain. Histories think that she poisoned herself when her soldiers were losing, and the Romans were about to take them prisoner.

Related Videos

Just for fun...

• Gruesome mini-games to play: Horrible Histories: Romans vs Celts
• "Visit" Celtic Britain : see postcards of the sights, be prepared with travellers' essentials and learn some useful phrases
• Take a Celts, Bronze Age, and Iron Age quiz to show off your knowledge
• Download, print and make a paper model of a roundhouse
• Take the Rotten Romans & Cut-throat Celts quiz
• Build your own stone circle
• Learn to draw the elaborate Celtic knots used for decoration by the ancient Celts
• Make your own Celtic armlet (print the template and the instructions to make it in clay or in card )

Books about the Celts for children

Find out more about the Celts:

• Information about Celtic life in Britain from a British Museum exhibition , with images of beautiful artefacts
• See a map of where the different  native tribes of Britain  lived in the Iron Age
• Information about  Celtic religion  and  Celtic warriors
• Look through a collection of images of reconstructed Celtic roundhouses
• Watch  BBC Bitesize videos about life in Celtic Britain
• Understand more about the Picts in Scotland  in BBC Bitesize videos
• There are some wonderful BBC video clips about different aspects of Celtic life: find out about  Celtic jewellery , Celtic artefacts , Celtic statues , everyday Celtic objects ,  Celtic water gods , Celtic religion , Celtic clothing , Celtic funerals , Celtic burial rites and Celtic burial chambers .
• Watch video clips to understand what a Celtic village looked like, how people lived in Celtic villages , Celtic roundhouse design , dwellings in a Celtic town  and  brochs , Celtic houses in the area which was formerly occupied by Picts and is now Scotland. An excavation at Chysauster, site of a Celtic village in south western Cornwall, shows what the ruins of roundhouses look like today .
• See pictures of beautiful Celtic art
• What did the Celts look like? Find out more about the reconstruction of a Celtic warrior's body found at Lindow Moss in Cheshire , famously known as the Lindow Man. His last meal was also analysed to understand more about his diet!
• Read children's fiction about the Celts
• Iron Age Celts in Ireland
• Find out about Celtic objects and art , including a Celtic sword and scabbard dating from 60 BC

See for yourself

• "Visit" Celtic Britain with a BBC Bitesize interactive guide
• See the Lindow Man at the British Museum
• The Maiden Castle hill fort in Dorchester is the UK’s largest and most complex example of an Iron Age hill fort
• Visit  Danebury Iron Age Hill Fort Local Nature Reserve in Hampshire and download a "story walk" to complete around the site
• Castell Henllys is an important Iron Age archaeological site in north Pembrokeshire, Wales

Give your child a headstart

• FREE articles & expert information
• FREE resources & activities
• FREE homework help

©Copyright Mandy Barrow 2013 primaryhomeworkhelp.com

Follow me on Twitter @mbarrow

Woodlands Junior School, Hunt Road Tonbridge Kent TN10 4BB UK

Display Settings

Welcome to the display settings! Click the "Get Started" button below or use the buttons above to choose which setting(s) you want to change.

Get Started

Select your preferred typeface/font from the list below.

Next Setting

Colour Theme

Select your preferred colour theme.

Select the text size that you find the easiest to read.

Letter Spacing

Line height.

The Great Fire of London was a fire that was so big that it burned nearly all of the buildings in London, with the exception of the Tower of London as that was made from stone, and stone doesn't burn up easily.

All settings are saved automatically and can be changed at any time. What do you think of this feature?

23rd November 2021

The Celts, also known as the Iron Age Celts, were people that lived in the present-day Britain and Northern Ireland. Some say that the Celts were the original Brits.

The Celts famously had round houses, with the roof being made of straw in the shape of a cone. The walls of the houses were usually made of mud.

As you can see in the house above, there is a hole at the top of the roof. This is because Celtic houses usually had a fire going in the middle of the house so they could cook animals and keep warm. Surrounding the fire were beds where Celts would sleep.

A lot of the food that they ate was grown or killed close to where they lived. This included vegetables like carrots, onions and turnips and meat like fish, pigs and chickens. Other things they ate include:

• grains (such as wheat)

When did the Celts exist?

They still exist today, with Celtic languages being spoken in Cornwall, Wales, parts of Scotland and Ireland. The Celts started becoming more Roman in the centuries after the Romans had invaded.

Roman invasion

The successful Roman invasion in 47AD changed the way the Celts lived. A lot of Celts moved to Scotland, where the Romans built Hadrian’s Wall. This was because the Romans couldn’t take over Scotland since they would lose too many soldiers.

Home » Celts

The Celts KS2

The Celts KS2 for kids learning at Primary School. Homework help on the history of Celts, the Iron Age facts, Celtic life and Boudicca.

Time: 800BC - 50AD

Who were the Celts?

The Celts were made up of many different tribes, but their way of life was very similar. Living through the Iron Age period, they grew from mid-Europe and slowly spread out over much of the rest of Europe.

The Iron Age

What was celtic life like.

Wherever they settled, Celts would set up farms and small villages. Their houses were called roundhouses made of wood or stone and contained just one big room.

Being very skilled the Celts made all their own iron weapons and tools. Using bronze, silver and gold they loved to create beautiful objects.

The Celts believed that their Gods lived in streams, rocks and trees and they would throw precious objects into a river as a gift to the Gods.

Celtic life

Horrible histories - cut-throat celts.

Celtic Warriors

Being fierce fighters Celtic Warriors and their tribes often fought each other. They would tattoo themselves with blue paint to make themselves look scary.

They had great feasts whenever they won a battle and during these feasts, poet-musicians called bards would tell poems of Celtic heroes.

Who was Boudica?

Boudica’s husband was a King Prasutagus, which therefore made her a Queen. When this Celtic king died, the Romans came and demanded taxes from people living on the land. Queen Boudica was a strong woman and refused, but this led to her being tied to a post and beaten in front of her people.

Angry for revenge, Boudica led an army, the Iceni tribe, to a Roman town called Colchester where she defeated the Romans. With her large strong army, she then attacked London and St.Albans and she won again. All that remained was to defeat the governor and his army and then they would be free of Roman rule.

As strong as Boudica’s army was, the Romans were stronger and pushed them back. The battle was lost. Rather than be captured by the Roman army, Boudica killed herself by drinking poison.

What happened to the Celts?

The Roman Empire grew stronger and stronger and in the end, the Romans conquered most of the land owned by the Celts. Some of the Celtic cultures live on today in Ireland and in remote parts of Scotland and Wales.

Also on Super Brainy Beans

• Science Games
• Language Arts Games
• Social Studies Games
• Music Games
• Essays, Reports
• Safety Games
• Free Powerpoints

Celts Free Games & Activities for Kids

The Celts are a collection of Indo-European people identified by their use of the Celtic language and other cultural similarities. Historically Celtic groups included the Gauls, Britons, Gaels, Celtiberians and their offshoots. Today the term Celtic generally refers to the languages and cultures of Ireland, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, Scotland, Wales and Brittany. These are the regions where the four major Celtic languages are still spoken to some extent today.

Historically the Celts were the most powerful people in central and northern Europe from around 750 BC to 12 BC. There were many groups and tribes speaking a vaguely common language. The Celtics are often called Iron Age Celts because they found out how to make iron tools and weapons. The Celts lived all across Europe during the Iron Age. The Iron Age Celts of Europe and Britain were very superstitious. Druids were Celtic priests that would predict the future by interpreting nature. The Celts believed in many gods and goddesses. Celtic soldiers believed that capturing someone soul gave you powerful magic so they collected the heads of their enemies killed in battles, often nailing the skulls over the doors of their homes.Celts built huge heavily defended communities called hill forts, building on top of large hills. The largest Iron Age hill fort in Britain today is Maiden Castle in Dorset.Today there are still many Celts living in Wales, Cornwall, Scotland, Isle of Man and Ireland.

Celtic Games and Activities:

Games ancient Celts played with balls

Native games of Ireland

Iron Age Celts Lesson Plans

How Celtic Warriors embalmed heads of enemies

Celtic art projects for kids

The Celts for Kids

Irish Fairy Tales

The Mabinogion Stories & Myths

Celtic Crafts for Kids

Egypt Greece Rome Mesopotamia Vikings Other Ancients Myths