Viking Ship Craft for Kids

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While learning about Vikings during our Viking Unit Study, the kids wanted to make a Viking ship. Using some common household materials and some recycled materials, we came up with a Viking Ship Craft that has been played with over and over and extended their learning through small world play. I often find the kids, mainly Jonah, pretending Lego men are Erik the Red on a voyage or Leif Erickson on his way to North America.

 

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To make the base of our viking ship, we recycled an orange juice carton. Using a box cutter, I cut the orange juice carton in half.

Using brown paint, the kids painted the orange juice carton half.

While the paint was drying, Jonah was in charge of measuring lines with a ruler on a piece of cardstock and coloring the red stripes on the viking boat sail. (See how I snuck that math measurement skill in there?) When he was finished, I cut the paper in half and trimmed the sail to 7 inches tall and 5 ½ inches wide. Using hot glue along the top and bottom edges, I reinforced the viking sail with bamboo skewers.

Once the edges were reinforced, I used my scissors to poke a hole through the top and bottom in the center of the sail. I used a skinny, but sturdy cardboard tube that was recycled from a package of glow stick bracelets. It was the perfect size for the mast.

Using the skinny cardboard tube, I threaded the tube through both holes in the paper sail. Then, I hot glued the mast in the center of the boat.

To make the oars, I used a single hole punch to punch three holes in each side of the boat.

Next, we threaded three bamboo skewers into the holes and used some brown craft foam hot glued to each end to form the paddle on the oar.

The craft foam was wrapped around both sides of the skewer and hot glued together.

To make the dragon head on the front of the viking boat, I folded a piece of brown craft foam in half and roughly cut a dragon profile. Using hot glue, I attached the dragon head to the front of the boat. The picture below shows the dragon head unfolded.

And that's it! A Viking Ship Craft for Kids to pretend and engage in small world play.

Other Viking Activities for Kids

Enjoy a Viking Lunch during your Viking Unit Study and snuggle up with some Viking Books!

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