Table of Contents
ARTS, CRAFTS, AND GAMES
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See this excellent collection of Viking crafts and projects, including a recipe for Viking-style bread and instructions for making a sailable Viking dragon ship using a pair of water bottles. |
| From Crayola, Westward With the Vikings has instructions for making a paper-and-craft-stick Viking dragon boat. | |
| DLTK’s Crafts for Kids has a Viking Paper Craft: print and color the templates to assemble a Viking paper doll. Wearing a horned helmet. | |
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See these instructions for making a terrific Viking Shield. (You’ll need duct tape and a big piece of corrugated cardboard.) |
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A.G. Smith’s Story of the Vikings (Dover Publications, 1988) is an informational coloring book covering all aspects of Viking life. Pair this one with a nice box of colored pencils. For ages 8-12. |
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Make a great Viking brooch! |
| From the Instructables, Making a Viking Cloak-Pin is a serious project involving metal and a brazing rod. | |
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The Scandinavian game of Kubb is also known as “Viking chess.” The goal: to throw sticks at your opponent’s pieces in an attempt to knock them over. Find out how to make a set of your own here. |
| Commercial versions of Kubb/Viking chess – played outdoors on the lawn – are also available. | |
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The Lewis chessmen are thought to have been made in Scandinavia in the 12th century. (Harry Potter played Wizard’s Chess with them in Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone.) |
| Medieval Foes With Whimsy is an article from the New York Times about the Lewis chessmen. | |
| Also see The Isle of Lewis Chess Set on You Tube, which has great views of the pieces. | |
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Nancy Marie Brown’s Ivory Vikings (St. Martin’s Press, 2015) is a history of the Vikings, the Lewis chess set, and Margret the Adroit of Iceland, the woman who made them. For teens and adults. |
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At Write Your Name in Runes, you can do just that, plus learn the runic alphabet. Or check out Veronica Fowler’s Children’s Book of Runes (2019), a colorful guide to the runic alphabet. |
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From Omniglot, Runic Alphabet has information, history, and several versions of the runic alphabet (known as futhark from its first six letters). |
LESSON PLANS, ETC.
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Visit Mr. Donn’s Vikings for Kids and Teachers for kid-friendly illustrated into of Viking geography, daily life, exploration, language, myths, sagas, and more, plus interactive games. Also see lesson plans for teachers. |
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Aimed at primary-school kids, the BBC’s Vikings has questions and answers, activities, fun facts, and photo and video galleries. |
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| From the Core Knowledge website, The Vikings: Marauders or Explorers? is a detailed six-part lesson plan targeted at third-graders but adaptable for a range of ages. Included are activities, lists of key terms and vocabulary words, learning goals, and resource lists. | |
| The companion website to NOVA’s The Vikings has a virtual tour of a medieval Viking village, interesting information on Viking history, a clickable map showing the extent of Viking travels, and a project in which kids make a tree-ring timeline. |
MUSIC AND POETRY
| Music of the Viking Age is a short illustrated history. | |
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From the BBC’s Learning School Radio, Viking Saga Songs is an animated collection of stories and songs based on Norse mythology. Sing along with “Loki the Joker.” |
| Viking Age Music has photos and descriptions of many typical Viking instruments, along with comments from contemporaries. (“Never before I have heard uglier music,” wrote one Arabic traveler.) | |
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Recreating the Jorvik Panpipes describes how a Viking instrument found at the Jorvik site was resurrected. |
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From Rudyard Kipling’s wonderful Puck of Pook’s Hill, the Harp Song of the Dane Women is a poem about the Vikings. |
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Musician’s Tale is from his longer work, The Saga of King Olaf. (A favorite of Theodore Roosevelt.) It’s found in Longfellow’s collection Tales of a Wayside Inn. |