Project 38: The Vikings

The Vikings is another of those obligatory home education projects for young children, and Solomon picked it as this week's project. As we had had a few days in York earlier in the year (visiting the Jorvik centre etc), we focused on discovering the Vikings through books, videos and song, looking at the history of Vikings in Britain, and Viking myths and legends.

The history of the Vikings made use of a number of books: History of Britain: the Saxons & Vikings, Ladybird Book of British History, and Horrible Histories: Vicious Vikings. We also coupled the 'proper' history with some relevant stories from Great Stories from British History, about kings Edmund, Swayne and Canute. Solomon was thrilled to discover a recipe for conker soap in the Vicious Vikings, but disappointed that it was the wrong time of year for conkers. As well as Solomon's favourite The Story of Britain animation, we also watched some BBC Teach clips with Neil Oliver.

We also made use of BBC resources for learning about some Viking myths and legends. They have a number of Viking saga songs, to form the basis of music lessons, as well as the usual animations. The Thor and the Giants tale has also been made into a TED Ed video:

Most importantly this week, we also compared the classic cartoon Vicky the Viking with the more recent Vic the Viking, and came to the conclusion that the original was better!

Of course no Viking project would be complete without a picture of a longboat:

Solomon's Longboat

Next week (on a similar theme to coincide with the Peterborough Heritage Festival): The Saxons!