Viking Unit

Vikings are such an odd time period in history. As a culture, we are very obsessed with them. We’ve created so many movies and TV shows about them, and their actions did a lot to change our culture, but the individual Vikings do not do much to change our history. It makes it difficult to create a Viking Unit for your history lessons because it’s more about the idea of Vikings, than about their history. This falls mostly into the Middle Ages time period.

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Vikings Unit resources

First, let’s start with my Vikings Unit YouTube list. I have two different lists for this.

First, let me share with you my generic Vikings playlist, it has both historical materials and material on Norse mythology.

While we were studying Vikings, we would watch videos from this playlist as we ate our lunch. These videos are intended for middle school-aged kids, and I screened them with that in mind.

This is someone else’s Norse Mythology playlist, so I have not watched all of these videos, but it was one I saved to look through and use.

I say that so if you see something that catches you by surprise, you don’t suddenly go, “But Ticia, why is crazy super sexual content in there?” (This is a mythology playlist, it could happen). I have watched a few of them, but not all of them, at the time I saved the playlist, it did not have 95 videos on it. They have since added several more videos to the playlist.

Vikings booklist

I haven’t read through all of these books yet. This is the list I found at my library, but some of these are checked out currently, so this is on my to to be read pile now.

I opted to put together a combination of fun fiction books and some good nonfiction books. Sadly, there are not a lot of good nonfiction books, or even really all that many nonfiction books.

• Edda: a little Valkyrie’s first day of school– a Valkyrie is sent to experience school with kids down on earth, hijinks ensue…
• Helga makes a name for herself– Helga wants to grow up to be a strong valiant warrior and prove she can be one, a cute little picture book
• Biggest, baddest book of warriors– not solely about Vikings, so there’s that…
• Gods and goddesses of the ancient Norse– A good overall book of Norse mythology
• The Theft of Thor’s Hammer– one of the more well-known myths, so it has many different picture books
• Voyage with the Vikings– I just realized we have this book. Part of my brief attempt to get my kids to enjoy this series, but they never were super into either this series or the Magic School Bus series, much to my chagrin.
• Narwhal on a Sunny Night– The Magic Tree House book about Vikings
• D’Aulaires book of Trolls– I pretty much pick up any book by D’Aulaires.
• D’Aulaires Book of Norse Myths– It just always does a good job of retelling the stories AND has great illustrations
• Treasury of Norse mythology: stories of intrigue, trickery, love, and revenge– this is such a long subtitle
• Scandinavian mythology– Someone in my area must be studying Vikings because half the books on this list are check out right now
• Leif Erikson, Norwegian Explorer– This would be great for someone in upper elementary writing a report.
• Who Was Leif Erikson– The covers of these books make me laugh. The head is twice the size of the body.
• Leif the Lucky– I just realized this is also by D’Aulaire, but it’s not called by her name. How interesting…

Viking posts

There are two events we tie to the Vikings. Are you ready for this?

They are both related to exploring:

• The Discovery of Iceland– by Erik the Red, which is one of the two people we really learn about with the Vikings.
• The Discovery of America– by Erik’s son, Leif Ericson. This concludes the two historical events for the Vikings.
• Make a Viking Spear
• Make a Viking Brooch
• How to make a Roman short sword– I did not remake how to make a sword post because, it would have been writing the same idea, only slightly longer
• How to make a knight’s shield– Again, I did not rewrite this post because it’s the same concept. Just make a round shield
• Small Arms Combat– learn how to make use of the weapons you’ve made

I still need to write a post about Norse mythology…. Sigh, there is so much I thought I had written, but I have not written.

More great Middle Ages history

• Middle Ages Peasant Unit
• Joan of Arc Unit
• Battle of Hastings lesson
• The icon controversy, recreate an art style
• Stained glass art style

• Vikings in the Cathedral by A J Paxton, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
• By The Vikings Sculpture, Jarrow by G Laird, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=141442899