Mr. Flynn's class have been very busy over the last couple of weeks studying the Vikings or Norsemen. The Vikings came from present day Scandinavia.We have found out that the Vikings are not as bad as they are sometimes protrayed. Eventhough, they were fierce warriors and deserved the 'Vicious Viking' name they earned, they were also great explorers, adventurers, craftsmen, traders and sailors. We have also learned that the Vikings travelled great distances by sea and were brillant boat builders. They discovered Iceland, Greenland and it is also said they landed in Newfoundland hundreds of years before any other explorers. They also travelled to France, Spain, Italy, Russia, Poland and as far away as modern day Iran and Iraq.
Did you know that Normandy in France is named after the Norsemen (Vikings)!
We have also had some great fun building our own 'Longboats', the name of the Viking ships. We all helped to make a large longship on display outside our class. It is complete with our own Roundtower with monks David, Darren and Elaina not looking too happy with the sight of the Vikings coming. With the help of our parents at home we have made our own models of the longboats.
We are all very busy with completing different projects on the Vikings. Each group has three of us working on different aspects of Viking life. The projects include Viking Religion, Viking homes, food, weapons, burials, women and children, Viking warriors, differnt Viking jobs and Viking raids. We will get a chance to complete our projects using Powerpoint and present them to the whole class. Everyone is busy working on the projects!
Did you know that many words that we use in English today have come from the Vikings, such as window, egg, cake, happy, sad, anger, scare, die, rotten, by law, berserker, mistake, hit and many more!
We will keep you up to date over the next couple of weeks as we plan to trace the footsteps of the Vikings in Cork with the help of local historian Kieran McCarthy.
Please enjoy the following Viking song we have been leaning in class, it is from the BBC Horrible History series and is called 'Literally'!
