Viking History Co-op. Week 5: Viking Ships

Week 5: We made model Viking Ships.

The Vikings were explorers and traveled great distances in their ships. Shields and men lined the sides of the ships. Men sat on crates which doubled as storage containers and ate salted fish while on expeditions. The ships rode shallow in the water which allowed them to travel far inland on river. The shallow depth coupled with a team of men working together gave the Viking ships great speed.

Easily identified by the great dragons carved into ships, Viking ships were master works of art. They were carved from tail to tip with woven images. Sea fairing was so much a part of the Viking culture, and the Vikings were master ship builders.

Viking Ship Building Video is a short video which explains how Viking ships were constructed.

Since the Vikings had to work together to row their ships, the kids each grabbed part of a rope and worked to row together.

Our Viking Ships were constructed from a half an empty milk cartons for the frame, file folders for the ship head, tail and shields, string to hold up the mast, a small piece of wood for the mast, skewers for oars, lots of masking tape and some markers. Unfortunately, the video tutorial we followed is no longer available, but this How to Make a Model Viking Ship video shows a similar procedure. The main difference between the videos is that our ship frame was constructed from a milk carton cut in half with file folders glued onto the ends, whereas the one in the video was entirely from cardboard actually making it a bit nicer.