Vikings & the Middle Ages
By : admin

“Don’t waste your time looking back. You’re not going that way”.”

-Ragnar Lothbrok


Welcome to our Viking Unit! While reading this post, you will find ideas for putting together a unit study for your K-3rd students on the time period of the middle ages… ships, knights, Vikings, castles and more! This study was designed for my homeschool family, but many of the activities could be used in any school environment. This is a 2 week unit that incorporates history, math, art, language arts, & science — and we tied in wind and water energy into this unit, for which there is a separate post. You can find a suggested schedule and supplies at the bottom of this page. Hope you will find something for each of your students here. Enjoy!

Books

Before every unit, I put books on hold from the library, because who doesn’t love free resources?! I specifically search for project-oriented books, such as art books & science experiment books. For this unit, I pulled out many books on The Viking, Castles, and Knights. One of my absolute favorite parts about studying this time period with younger children, is that we check out the entire “Sir Cumference” math series! These funny, cute math books (shown in the picture at the top!) have a knight and castle theme, and lots of Education included in the story!

In addition, the list below shows the other books I checked out for this unit. As usual, we pick out a magic tree house book on the topic to study. If the book has a Youtube read aloud, I have included the link as well:

  • “Magic Tree House: Viking Ships at Sunrise” – Mary Pope Osborne
  • “Magic Tree House: Viking Fact Tracker” – Mary Pope Osborne
  • “The Last Viking” – Norman Jorgensen
  • “Vikings” – Kingfisher Reader 3 – Great for kids to read alone and summarize or tell you about
  • “Hands on History: Vikings” – Fiona McDonald – Awesome project ideas for this Viking Unit! We used a couple of these
  • “St. George and the Dragon” – Margaret Hodges – this is a longer story book, better used for kids 7+
  • Great Medieval Projects you can Build Yourself” – Kris Bordessa

Sir Cumference Series:

  1. “The Off-the-charts-dessert” – Cindy Neushwander and Wayne Geehan
  2. “The First Round Table” -Cindy Neushwander and Wayne Geehan
  3. “All the Kings Tens” -Cindy Neushwander and Wayne Geehan
  4. “The Dragon of Pi” -Cindy Neushwander and Wayne Geehan
  5. “The Sword and The Cone”-Cindy Neushwander and Wayne Geehan

Videos

Next, because my kids really enjoy historical shows about the ancient world, I always pick out a few videos for them to check out. Sometimes they can learn just as much from a video as a book. So, here are a couple of the ones we used this time around:

Geography & Cooking

Most of our history units start with geography. So for our Viking homeschool unit, we studied the entire area of Scandinavia on the map, and I discussed which countries are currently located in that region. One of the Viking videos and the first page in the history projects book also showed all the areas that the Vikings took over. I showed the kids these places on the map as well.

We also made several Viking Recipes. The first one I found in the “Hands on History” book. If you have 2 apples and honey on hand, Viking “apple juice” is a super easy project. The apples are sliced, then boiled for 5 minutes in 2 cups of water with a teaspoon of honey. Strain the mixture and you have ancient apple juice! (I did add additional honey before drinking.)

Next, we cooked an ancient “Viking Stew.” To make the stew, gather these ingredients to put in the crock pot:

  • onions
  • garlic
  • potatoes
  • 1lb stew meat of choice
  • bacon
  • cabbage
  • beer (optional)
  • vegetable or beef stock

I am including the exact link to the recipe here. The idea behind the recipe is to just stick all the items in the crock pot at the beginning of your school day, and by the time dinner comes around, it’s already done! In addition, if you are looking for a little dessert to go along with your stew you can try this recipe for Swedish nuts. Ingredients can be found on the supply list at the bottom of the page.

Viking Unit Life and Culture

One easy way to introduce Viking culture is to talk about their written language. The language of the Vikings was called Old Norse. Luckily, the Old Norse alphabet has some similarities to the one was use today, and therefore is easy for children to relate to!

Here is a simple Viking alphabet activity – all you need is modeling clay and toothpicks! I used this great website to print a list of Viking Runes. Scroll all the way to the bottom and you’ll see a sheet that says “how to read Viking Runes”. (This website also has some awesome coloring pages from the book the Last Viking)

So I printed my kids the Viking rune alphabet, and let them see if they could write a message, or their name in our pretend Viking clay “runes.” Afterwards, I let them use the extra clay to create some interesting Viking pieces, such as the dragon pictured above.

Viking Game

Next up after Runestones was to create a Viking game. This game came out of the “Hands on History” book as well. It was easy to create with posting board and some clay or Playdoh.

First you create a board with 11 squares down each side. Then decorate the center square the the corners with Viking drawings. Create 12 pieces of one color and 24 of another. Set the board up as shown!

The game has a similar strategy to chess, but takes much less time, and therefore is engaging for the kids. They also really enjoyed making the pieces for the game. You can find the rules in the image below – keep in mind, our board has green at the center and white at the edges (the instructions state white and blue). The goal of the game is to capture the “King” in the center of the board if you are the outer pieces (white). If you are the inner pieces (green) than your goal is to protect the King and get him safely to one of the corners!

Creating a Viking Ship

Next, for hands on activities, we chose to design our very own Viking Longship. As it was a hot day in the Florida Summer (when is it not hot here!), we opted to eat and carve a watermelon Longship! Although I have seen several on Pinterest that came out far nicer than ours, it was fun for the kids and they learned something about how the Vikings built their ships. For example, while building the ship we researched the exact number of oars on the original ships. There were Fifty!

Medieval Times Hands on Projects

When we finishing up our Viking projects, we moved on to a couple hands on activities from the medieval times. Both of these projects came form the book “Great Medieval Projects you can Build Yourself- Kris Bordessa.

The first craft uses dowels, felt pieces, and duct tape to create jester sticks. These sticks are used for juggling and balancing, and bonus – they are simple to make. If you don’t have the book on hand, don’t worry! You can easily find the exact instructions here. Also, the dowel size isn’t that important, as long as you have three of them!

Another exciting medieval project to check out is making a marshmallow cannon! This second project is slightly more complicated, but still doable. To begin, you will need several different sizes of PVC cut. The instruction tutorial is also located in the projects book, or online you can find a similar tutorial here. Although they are slightly challenging to assemble, my kids had an absolute blast with these cannons!

Viking Unit Writing

Every unit I do includes some type of writing assignment or reading comprehension for the kids. Sometimes we do both! For the Vikings, I put together a short packet wiht questions. You can find it on on my teachers pay teachers store – reading comprehension assignment on the Vikings! Just click the link or click on the pictures. This packet is designed for 2nd and 3rd grade. I should be making an updated version for 4th grade soon.

I also often have my kids summarize books that they are reading. The Kingfisher Viking book is a perfect one for elementary kids who are reading well on their own – meaning they can read for understanding and not just read. It is short and not too heavy. Both of my children read this book (ages 8 & 9 at the time) and I had them write a summary of their favorite part of the book.

Wrap Up & Vikings Unit Suggested Schedule:

And that is a wrap for our Viking Homeschool unit! At the bottom, you will see my suggested schedule for the two weeks. As always, thanks for viewing my unit on the Vikings and the Medieval Times!

**Note, some of these activities are in the Wind & Water Power Unit, which we did as science alongside the Viking Unit

Week 1

  • Monday: Read 1/2 of Magic Tree House “Viking Ships at Sunrise”, Geography: Scandinavia
  • Tuesday: Viking Runestones, Watching Viking videos
  • Wednesday: Finish Magic Tree House book. Science: wind energy
  • Thurs: Wind Energy Pinwheels
  • Fri: Build a Viking ship, Make Viking Game, read and summarize Kingfisher “Vikings” book

Week 2:

  • Mon: Viking reading comprehension packet.
  • Tues: Build a Wind Powered Boat, Sir Cumference Math Books
  • Wed: More Sir Cumference Math Books
  • Thurs: Make Jester Sticks and Marshmallow Cannon
  • Fri: Viking Stew, Apple juice, & Swedish nuts recipes

Supplies:

  • modeling clay
  • toothpicks
  • skewers
  • watermelon
  • knife & spoon
  • 2 apples
  • honey
  • pot
  • crock pot
  • onions
  • garlic
  • potatoes
  • 1lb stew meat of choice
  • bacon
  • cabbage
  • beer (optional)
  • vegetable or beef stock
  • 2 egg whites
  • sugar
  • salt
  • 1 lb pecan halves
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • poster board or cardboard
  • clay or playdoh
  • wooden dowels
  • felt
  • duct tape (can be patterned)
  • scissors
  • PVC pieces (see cannon instructions)
  • mini marshmallows