Viking Shield [upcycled history craft]

Cheap fun. I love it. And when I tally the expenses for this history craft, they're nominal. But the amount of fun that has resulted is priceless.

When my oldest son and I read our second book in the "Your Life as ..." series by Thomas Kingsley Troupe, I immediately thought of a great craft extension to our lesson on Vikings. But enough about me. 

Let me tell you about this amazing book: Your Life as an Explorer on a Viking Ship. Just like our last experience with one of Troupe's storytelling adventures (see the book recommendation and Colonial crafts we made here), we were transported back in time as we imagined the life of 11-year old Leif Grimmson, son of Grimr the Grouch, in the year 812, as he left his family farm in Denmark to explore with the Vikings.

The book intertwines the story of Leif's adventure with loads of interesting historical facts. A few of the things we learned included:

• Most Vikings were farmers.
• The parts of a boat: stern, oars, oar ports, hull, prow, sail, and mast.
• Vikings played a game that is believed to be similar to chess, called Hnefatafl.
• Shields kept Vikings safe in battle. Most were made of pinewood.

Now it was time to make our own version of a Viking shield!!

Supply List (for one shield)

Large piece of cardboard

Empty, clean plastic gallon-size milk jug

Duck tape (the original grey stuff)

Paint (optional)

Nailhead-looking apparel findings (we got ours in the button aisle) (optional)

Glue gun

Thanks to all the packaging from holiday gifts, we had a surplus of corrugated cardboard. I snagged a few pieces before it went out to the curb with the week's recyclables. We used a round pizza pan to trace the circle and then I used an Exacto craft knife to cut the circle out.

Now I queried "Viking Shield" on Google images. My son and I looked at all the pictures on my computer and he decided on a design. With a large cross made with duck tape, the shield instantly had a wood-and-metal look. 

At the time, he had no interest in painting the shield so, we ran another length of duck tape along the shield's edge, clipping it every inch or so to enable it to fold around the circular shape of the shield easily. Don't worry if you don't get the tape to lay flat; that adds to the rustic look!

Next, he used the low-temp glue gun to attach some apparel findings that resembled nail heads.

Now all that was left to do was add a handle. 

I used the Exacto craft knife to cut out the handle of a plastic milk jug. He used the low-temp glue gun to attach it to the back of the shield.

When little brother came home from preschool, he immediately asked if I'd make him a shield. For his, I masked off two areas with blue painters tape and brushed on acrylic craft paint. Then I added woodgrain with a brown fine point Sharpie. Lastly, I glued on a clean, empty single-serve applesauce cup covered in duck tape to the center.

Now, of course, our oldest saw this and suddenly wanted his shield painted, so out came the paints again! The red paint looks great. I love the final result!

And, while our boys certainly aren't pillaging any villages with their new "armor," the shields have worked wonders blocking the fire of Nerf gun darts!

SHARK bingo game [free printable]

Totally coincidentally, my son has been reading a lot about sharks. I seized the opportunity to explore different species of these toothy swimmers, with a little MORE reading (I love an excuse to go to the library) and a fun game.

Before we played our game, we read a perfect book to teach us about some of the 350 different kinds of sharks. Gail Gibbons' book taught us about some of the biggest and smallest sharks, what they eat (including whether they're likely to eat us), and the anatomy of a shark.

Download six SHARK bingo game cards and calling cards free here.

When we'd finished the book, I had my son select one of six SHARK bingo game cards I'd made; I picked another one. Then, I shuffled the call cards and opened a bag of Swedish Fish gummy candies (our bingo markers).

One at a time we drew the call cards and placed a fish over the shark on the card (and the FREE space, of course!). My son got five in a row before I did and was declared the winner. Our prize? He got to eat some of the gummies!

Two of my son's favorite chapter book series have featured some of these amazing fish. The Ready Freddy book taught us about the prehistoric Megalodon. The Magic School Bus book taught us loads of shark facts. My son (and I) recommend both books for able readers interested in learning more.

Me and Magritte [an Art Project]

The art movement of surrealism can be tough for adults to understand (what's with those melting clocks anyway?). Kids are much more open-minded. To expose my son to the art of Rene Magritte, we read a few great books and then made our own Magritte-esque masterpiece.

Since my son is only seven years old, I let our artist study be self-guided, and didn't try to overwhelm him with a grown-up definition of surrealism. A few great authors brought the movement to life, and helped my son observe the oddities of this art movement.

Dinner at Magritte's is a wonderful story that any child can relate to. Young Pierre is bored so he visits the neighbor's house. He's invited in by the Magrittes and asked to share dinner there with another painter, Salvador Dali. The illustrations in this book imitate the art; my son loved discovering all of the oddities.

The other piece of children's fiction that we read, Magritte's Marvelous Hat, tells the tale of the painter (depicted as a loveable dog) whose new hat unlocks his imagination and gets his creativity flowing. Some of the book is see-through pages, which add to the enjoyment of the story.

When we were done reading, I grabbed a photograph that I'd snapped of my son.

I told him it was time to make a personalized version of one of Magritte's paintings (click here to see the one we mimicked). This is a great activity to talk about positive and negative space.

Once my son's body was carefully cut out of the picture, we glued the empty silhouette to the right side of a piece of cloud-printed scrapbooking paper. To the left of it, we glued his body.

The result is just as curious as the original painting! 

Imagining Life as a Settler

Some books beg to be paired with an activity. Such is the case with this activity, which was inspired by some new books our library just shelved. What a treasure Thomas Kingsley Troupe's Your Life as a Settler in Colonial America is.

The "Your Life as a ..." series of books each ask children to pretend they are playing the role of a character that lived during another time - in this case, Colin Smalley, the 11-year-old son of a blacksmith living in colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.

The tale Troupe weaves imaginatively explains what life was like for Colin - where he slept, went to school, and used "the restroom"; when he ate; the games he played; and what he wore. When we were done reading, my son recorded a few of the things he learned from the book on a paper version of a hornbook (a paddle-shaped piece of wood where lesson sheets were attached for children to string around their necks and study).

Download a 2-page PDF of this hornbook
and writing paper template here.

To make your own hornbook, print the paddle shape onto a piece of brown cardstock. Cut the lined paper and glue or tape to the front.

When he was done writing, we fashioned our own three-cornered hat, mimicking the fashion of male colonists.

We used two sheets of 3mm (approximately 12 x 18-inch) brown foam. Cut two hat shapes and two 1 1/2-inch strips. Use the strips to make a headband, fitting it to your child's head (I used a stapler). Trim the excess.

Use school glue and binder clips (to hold while it dries) or a low-temp glue gun to affix the two hat shapes to the headband, gluing each on either side of the headband and attaching the hat's corners together. NOTE: We used glue dots at first but after loads of wear, they refused to hold and we resorted to traditional glue.

My son LOVED his new Colonist-style hat and thought it fitting to wear it in the evenings while he read his way through the Magic Tree House chapter book on the Revolutionary War. Little brother even asked if we could make a hat for him!

Top 12 of 2012: Followers' Favorites

These 12 activities are the followers' favorites from the year - those activities that have had the most number of page views. Click on the blog titles to read more, nab a free printable or two, or get instructions. Enjoy!

No. 1    Math Post-it Note Scavenger Hunt

No. 2    Making a Magic (Drinking Straw) Flute

No. 3    Race Around the Nouns, Verbs, & Adjectives Game

No. 4    Math Fact Family Roll & Write

No. 5    Solar System with Button Planets

No. 6    A Music Measure of Math

No. 7    Up & Down, Add & Subtract - Elevator Math!

No. 8    Let's Play Library [an Alphabetizing & Sequencing Game]

No. 9    DIY Palm Pipes

No. 10    Teaspoons, Tablespoons, Cups, & Gallons

No. 11    Homophones Memory Game

No. 12    Oatmeal Container Planetarium