Year 5 History Vikings Plan

This unit is designed for year 5 but could be adapted to fit into other year groups. The unit focuses on the Vikings as raiders – paying particular attention to their methods of travel and way of life. Throughout this unit, children will spend time learning about raiding and settlement. They will also learn how to carry out different types of historical research; develop their understanding of bias/historical interpretation. It develops the following skills and knowledge from the National Curriculum:

1. To know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; achievements and follies of mankind
2. Understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses.
3. Understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed.
4. Gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.

Lesson 1: A Chronology lesson which uses photographic evidence to give the children a deeper understanding of how and why different periods/peoples in time were so different. Children make links between different time periods as they start to use the language of chronology.

Lesson 2: A practical activity which gives the children a deeper understanding of the ‘Viking Raids’ on Britain.

Lesson 3: Children look more closely at the Viking Raid on Lindisfarne and the different Historical interpretations of the raid.

Lesson 4/5: A research activity where the children are given the opportunity to discover more about the Vikings – and whether they were just bloodthirsty raiders.

Lesson 6/7: Children present their findings (to their own questions) on the Vikings through multimedia presentations.

Within this unit plan there are hyperlinks to other resources associated with the plan.