Activities
(c) Hobbycraft
How to make a Viking longship
This link takes you to instructions on how to make a Viking longship from cardboard. We know that the Vikings painted their ships, so you can go to town on how you colour it in. This link takes you to an image of a reconstructed Viking ship that has been painted like the Vikings would have done. You can also add brightly-painted shields along the sides; Vikings would have stored their shields along the side of the ship while sailing to save space on board.
(c) Catcliffe Primary School
How to play Hnefatafl
Learn how to play the Viking game of hnefatafl with this video from Catcliffe Primary School. Hnefatafl was an important skill that noble Vikings were meant to play well. In fact, hnefatafl was one of the nine important skills that jarl Rögnvald of Orkney (later St Rögnvald) claimed to have.
(c) Damian Walker
Make your own Hnefatafl game
Once you have learned how to play hnefatafl, you will need a board and pieces to play it with. This link takes you to a page with printable downloads for many of the variants of hnefatafl. Hnefatafl could be played anywhere. Some people had fancy, carved wooden boards, but a board could easily just be marked out on a slab of stone or scratched in the dirt, with stones for pieces. As long as you know the rules, you can play anywhere!
(c) Royal Society of Chemistry
Science Vikings!
Experiment with the Vikings is a series of activities that allow you to explore science through the Vikings. Vikings used science in their daily lives, even though they did not think of it like that. Examples of Viking 'science' include their ships which were designed according to sound scientific principles, or the 'sun stone' that they used to navigate on cloudy days. They also had a sun compass that functioned like a sun dial, but was used to navigate instead of to tell the time.
(c) WGBH Educational Foundation
Time Warp Trio visit the Viking Age
This pamphlet and the associated website provide a series of activities related to Viking exploration. The pamphlet is designed for a US audience but could be easily adapted for other audiences. The further reading section is quite good, although more recent texts will be available now, and some of the suggested links.