The Vikings

The Vikings were known to be brave explorers and settlers, as well as farmers, traders and craftworkers. Their homelands were in northern Europe, in the countries now known as Scandinavia. One reason why they turned to the sea was the shortage of good farmland in Scandinavia to grow enough food. They explored and raided many lands, sailing south to as far as Italy, rowing down rivers of eastern Europe to trade with Russia and Arabia, and crossing the Atlantic westwards to North America.

The children in the class had expressed interest of these Nordic peoples with our local link of Dannevirke, a little township south of our hometown of Napier, and settled by the Danes in the 1860’s. A welcome sign as the town is approached depicts a Viking in full regalia of sword, helmet and sporting a red beard. Using this as a common thread we set up some learning opportunities to pursue.

 

Mapping skills were first to be developed, and although some children held some maps upside down we were soon able to identify the countries of Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark in northern Europe.

“The countries are so big, so why did they have to travel to other lands and invade them?” came an opening question from a curious pupil. This paved the way for a discussion on why people would sail away from their homeland. Our own New Zealand history of settlers from the United Kingdom from the 1830’s on highlighted reasons for emigrating to new lands.
We used a circle map to record items we knew about the Vikings from previous readings and discussions.

“Did they have horns on their helmets?” opened up discussion on another day when looking for traditional costumes the Viking people would have worn. Apparently this was a Victorian invention to highlight the aggressive, bull-like nature of the Vikings  who had invaded the shores of England numerous times from 800 AD to 1100 AD.

Weapons used by the Vikings was of particular interest to the boys in the class.
“Can we make swords?” was a request by some on more the one occasion. Fortunately we had acquired enough material from the edible arts fashion designs so had enough cardboard, tinfoil and glue to meet that question with an affirmative.

Boats were also of special interest for the class. We found that the Viking longship was the fighting ship measuring up to 25 metres and having a crew of over up to 60 men. They were a shallow fast boat capable of sailing far up rivers and landing on sloping beaches The Viking knorr on the other hand was shorter, less crew and was used for trading. They were sturdily built,wider slower and had high sides to carry more cargo. The students built longships to display their characteristics, some samples held up by the children.

If teachers want to get students interested in historic events get on to youtube and key in Horrible Histories. We all enjoyed repeat viewings of Vikings attacking monks in their monasteries and entering a Saxon home when the Vikings invaded England .Try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIwFJPwdxnoor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lst7Jgtqw10 .
These little samplings do ignore the reality of the situations that really existed in the past but appeal to the children’s sense of humour. 

 We hope you enjoy some of the things we have shared with you about the Vikings.