Teach Your Kids About … Vikings

The Vikings were a fierce, strong, and very interesting people from the Northlands. Here are some great resources to help you teach your children more about them.

Lesson Plans

• Viking Lesson Plans from the Viking Network Ireland – Five lessons about vikings, longships, sagas and settlements.
• Time Warp Trio: Vikings – based on the TV Show, Time Warp Trio, lesson plans about the main characters’ adventures in the viking period.
• Primary History: The Vikings from BBC – lessons, activities and games about the vikings, including teacher resources.
• Vikings: Sea Raiders, Land Raiders from Discovery Education – for grades 6 – 8
• The Vikings from PBS.org – Lessons and resources.
• Viking Lesson Plans from CoreKnowledge – PDF lessons about the Vikings, mostly for 3rd grade. Includes Leif Ericsson, discovering how they are misunderstood, their contributions to history, sagas, and more.
• Vikings Co-op Lessons from HighHill Homeschool – what one group did week by week to teach their kids about vikings.
• Exercises from the Viking Ship Museum – lessons and activities related to viking life and times from the ship museum in Norway

Worksheets, Notebooks, and Lapbooks

• Viking Adventure Lapbook from Homeschool Share
• Viking Lapbook from Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus
• Me and the Vikings Venn Diagram by Heather Carlsen
• Viking Exploration of North America by Ami Alvis
• Viking Runes Worksheet by Mikal Staley
• You Wouldn’t Want to Be A Viking Explorer Questions by Tinker’s Thinkers – questions about the book with the same name.

Crafts & Activities

• In the Art Room:Viking Ship Collages from Cassie Stephens – a creative art project for students in grades 3 to 5 ish.
• Paper Dolls from Practical Pages – men and women paper dolls with period clothing. Scroll down to find the link to each.
• Tissue Box Viking Ship from Crayola
• Cardboard Viking Shield from Deceptively Educational

Online Games & Activities

• Viking Quest – online game where you make the decisions behind a raid.
• Viking Time Tunnel – toss the items that don’t belong into the time tunnel
• Thorkel and the Trading Voyage – help Thorkel make some great trades
• Odin’s Challenge – Think you know everything about Vikings, mythology, and their sagas? Take this very difficult test and see if you can beat Odin.

Other Resources

• Jorvik Viking Centre – an in-person Viking village in York, England. Online resources include the option for a virtual visit through Skype, and printables such as colouring pages, information sheets and other activities. Site has lots of detailed information about “who were the Vikings.”
• Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga by the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History – based on a travel museum exhibit, includes an interactive viking voyage, teachers’ resources, and more.
• The Vikings Answer Lady – A comprehensive information website about the life and times of the Vikings
• Clothing the Viking Age – detailed information about the clothing for men and women
• How to make Viking Musical Instruments – how to make pipes, whistles, drums and horn bugle
• Viking Recipe Book 

Videos

• Heritage Minutes: Vikings 
• Horrible Histories: Vicious Vikings
• Horrible Histories: Literally – a Viking Song. – a soft rock viking ballad
• The Vikings : Documentary on the Life, Culture, and Legacy of Vikings – a multi- hour documentary [I haven’t watched the whole thing, so I am unsure of it being completely kid friendly.]
• The Viking Sagas: BBC

Books

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This post is part of a challenge that will blog through the alphabet over 26 weeks – hosted by Ben And Me. This is letter V. Feel free to join in yourself, or see what other people are blogging about!