Homeschool Viking Presentation

Welcome to our homeschool Viking presentation. In this post I have recorded how we set up for the presentation, how we prepared for it as well as some of the photos from the night. This presentation happened almost a decade ago, so the photos aren’t great quality, but they’ll give you an idea of how the night went.

Preparing for our Homeschool Viking Presentation

Half the fun of putting on a presentation is the preparation, in particular the last couple of hours before guests arrive.  It is at this time all the ideas and hard work of the past few weeks come together and create our dream.  There is a buzz.  It is when everyone in our family, including Granny next door, pulls together and we see team work at its best.  I always ask Gary whether all the hard work is worth it, and this time I wasn’t well so it felt harder than normal.  Yet the answer from us both is a resounding yes after the event.  Memory making is always worth the effort. 

Creating the Display

Using our huge paper mache map, we stuck some Viking boats we made from Smartie containers, showing the routes of the Viking Expansion:

To make the boats, I started by cutting a packet of Smarties in half. Next, the children painted each half brown and stuck some mini circle stickers on one side. Lastly, we added a dragon’s head to the front of the boat and a sail. We made multiple boats which helped the display look a bit more spectacular:

The children stuck them to the map, alongside some dated arrows, to show the Vikings migration:

We hung the map up at the window:

On the table in front of the map, we added all the children’s work and some of the project work they completed. This included the runes and the ancient maps we made. Also, Thomas had built a Viking ship from Lego:

Whilst the twins had created some Viking costumes for their dolls:

Setting the Scene

It is at this point that I seem to have gone a bit mad…

FirstI covered up the display with some cotton sheets:

Thomas would be presenting in front of the display later on that night. For now though, I wanted to recreate the feel of a room inside a Viking longboat for the girls to do their interview in. I lined up all the chairs and covered them in blankets, fake furs, wools and so forth. These represented the edges of the Viking house, where they may have sat or slept.

As Charlotte was doing a weaving demonstration as part of her presentation, we made a simple loom from a beech branch and thick wool, weighted down by the clay rings we had made earlier in the week. This was seriously the coolest thing I have ever made!

We used an old piece of wood as a low table and put everything wooden from our kitchen we could find. I found the huge pan which my mum used to boil my nappies in, and the grate from the fire:

We hung the pan from the ceiling beams and then strewed some straw all over the floor (!). We also added some lighting to the grate so that it looked a little bit like fire. It is starting to look a little like we’ve gone back in time….

The Program for our Homeschool Viking Presentation

As you know, each presentation we do we invite some lovely people from our community to come and join us.  We live in a village where everyone is so kind and willing to give their help in any way needed.  Our guests for this homeschool Viking presentation were the couple who owned the coffee shop close by. 

We advertised the event by creating a poster, which included the program for the night:

Our guests arrived at 7pm.  They were offered a drink and given a program of events for the night:

1. The Girls’ Presentation

The girls chose to do their presentation in the form of an interview.  They got this idea from the Horrible History DVDs.  They asked Daddy if he would play the part of a reporter from the 21st century, travelling back to the Viking age.  He agreed.  The interview was on the role of women during Viking times.

2. Viking Supper

After their interview we stopped for  a Viking supper. I made some really tasty lamb barley stew and some bread trenchers. We were going to use the trenchers as plates but, honestly, they did not look robust enough to hold the stew. In the end, we used our wooden plates:

3. Thomas’ Presentation

It was then Thomas’ turn.  We had removed the Viking room and archery net to reveal his ‘stage’ and off he went.  His presentation was about the reasons why the Vikings were such great explorers:

Afterwards, the children showed their guests all the work they had been doing over the past couple of months.

All in all a very successful evening was had by all!

Jimmie from notebooking fairy made some lovely note pages which we used on the night to great effect, making posters and programs out of them. She asked me to do a guest post about how I used them.  If you would like to read it, click here.