The Vikings are Coming

The Autumn Term Year 4 Forest School group had their final session today. Yesterday they had a visitor in class who had been sharing his knowledge of the Vikings with them. The children were buzzing with all manner of ways their new-found knowledge could be applied to Forest School activities.

On the walk to the forest, the children found an old tyre. Inside they found what they thought may be a silk sac of spider eggs. They said they thought a spider might have laid her eggs in the tyre because it was dark and sheltered from the weather.

Abbie and Sahdiyah were keen to build a viking shelter. Abbie explained that the Vikings used grasses to cover their roofs. Whilst gathering materials for their shelter, Abbie found another of the oak apple galls that we had identified on a previous visit to the wood. The girls also discovered lots of different types o fungi growing on the rotting branches some of which was black and jelly-like and some that was white and powdery.


Connaugh helped the girls to remove some of the broken branches from our old den and search for new ones. Luke collected longer branches to create a bridge across a big puddle on the pathway. He and Abbie carefully tested it to ensure it would take our weight.

Timea talked about how the Vikings were fearless fighters and crafted a wide range of weapons from materials such as animal bones. As we didn’t find any bones in the wood, she chose sticks from which to create a sword. She collected leaves from the forest floor to use as embellishments on her sword.


Luke shared with us the Viking myth about Thor the God of thunder and his hammer. He decided that he wanted to make his own version of Thor’s hammer. Luke used string to attach a piece of sandstone to a stick to make his hammer. The woodland is on the edge of an old quarry and sandstone can be found scattered all over the forest floor.

Before we knew it, time had again crept up on us and it was time to return to school,