Sunday, November 21, 2010

Vikings - Part 1


Vikings are what they're 'into' right now. So we've gotten books from the library - and one book had some great ideas for making things, as well as interesting information on Viking life.
(Technology in the Time of the Vikings by Peter Hicks) We adapted the ideas from Mr. Hicks' book and that's what this post is about.


Viking shields: the boys planned their own designs on paper. We googled 'Viking shield images' to give them some ideas and then off they went.
Then we cut out a circle of cardboard from our old moving boxes.
Next we cut out strips of cardboard (from another old moving box) to look like wooden slats. And trimmed them so that they matched the shield circle.

Then we used a hot glue gun to stick it all together. (**Note: if I was to do this again - I would attach the handles at this point by cutting slits in the back circle of cardboard, sliding the ends of the handles through and glueing them to the front; using either strips of webbing or strips of cardboard. The 'slats' would be glued over the ends of the handles creating strong handles)

Painting time! The boys enjoyed painting the shields to their designs with their colours. We discovered that the centre of a Viking shield features a 'boss', which is a metal disc. We created ours by glueing together circles of cardboard in decreasing diameters, so we ended up with a raised disc that we covered in aluminium foil. For fun, we made designs with hot glue on the cardboard disc before we covered it with foil so that when pressed the foil on it had raised areas.
Finally, we glued (with hot glue again) the finished 'boss' to the shield. And presto! The boys were off on another adventure.

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