Vikings

A's latest school project has been about Vikings.  She had a Viking themed day last week, where there was drama and air-dry clay, which made it pretty much the perfect day from her point of view.  That evening she asked if we could go up to bed early and look at all the books we could find about vikings.  This kind of question pretty much never gets a no from me, and so I scurried off upstairs to sort out the history books.  We started with the brilliant A Street Through Time, focusing on the Viking invasion page.  C also really enjoyed looking at this, and A talked us through what the vikings were wearing, the long boats, and the reasons why they came to the UK.  She was then interested to see if any of the features of the street stayed the same through all of the pictures from the very ancient landscape at the beginning, to the modern street.  They didn't, and we worked out that the church was the longest lived building.  I absolutely love this book, there's so much detail, and it's a brilliant antidote to the overly wordy history books which can dull any sense of excitement about the past in the young reader.

Next up was another favourite The Usborne History of Britain by Ruth Brocklehurst.  This is a very weighty tome, and is quite expensive for an Usborne, but, to my mind, worth it.  The text is nicely presented and interesting, and the illustrations, photos and captions are interesting and very nicely presented.  It's a brilliant homework resource for Key Stage 2 and 3 kids.

The Viking story from 101 Stories from British History, which I've mentioned before on the blog was a little on the bloodthirsty side, so had to be swiftly edited as I read it, which I am sure is probably good for my mental agility.