Lesson video

Hello there, and welcome to today's History lesson.

I'm Mr. Moss.

I'm really passionate about history, and I'm also really looking forward to teaching you.

With you today, you need to bring your looking eyes, your listening ears, and your thinking brains.

As well as that, having something to write with and write on, and someone or something to talk to would also be really helpful.

All right then, let's get straight into today's History lesson.

In this History lesson, we're going to be considering Viking navigation and expansion.

So how Vikings found their way, and also the places that they then went to.

The outcome will be, I can explain how the Vikings navigated over long distances to far away places.

Here are the key words for today's learning.

My turn, your turn.

Please make sure you say these back to me.

Archaeologist.

Evidence.

Stars.

Port.

Okay, so these are gonna be really important words for today's learning, so keep an eye and an ear out for them.

Let's talk about what they mean.

An archaeologist digs up and studies objects from the past.

Historians and archaeologists work very closely together, so that they have evidence to gain an understanding of the past.

Evidence is something that proves an idea or fact to be true.

As historians, we need evidence about the past so that we can back our ideas up and prove things to be true.

Stars.

The stars are balls of gas in space that give off light and heat.

Stars are one of the key ways that Viking seafarers and sailors were able to navigate, and we're going to be looking at that in this lesson.

And a port is a place where boats load and unload, and trade happens.

Basically a place that a boat or ship can go to and park, and then things can be brought on and off of it and people can trade and deal in things and do business.

So today we're looking at Viking navigation and expansion.

How did Vikings travel, and how do we know is what we are first going to look at.

Then we're going to look at where did Vikings travel to and why.

So let's get on with looking at how did Vikings travel and how do we know.

This is where we're going to consider the archaeological evidence that we have to back up our ideas and prove that they are true.

So, Vikings travelled across the sea and oceans via longboats.

Here is an illustration of a longboat.

You'll notice that it has sails, is long and narrow and made of wood, and at the front it has a carving that would be used to strike fear into the Vikings' enemies.

You'll notice too that it has shields that could be attached to the side of the longboat for protection.

It also has oars.

These oars could be used to move the boat forwards and backwards.

A key feature of this Viking longboat too was the fact that it had a shallow hull and outer body that was shallow, so that it could sail not only in seas and oceans, but also along shorelines and up shallow rivers.

These boats were also incredibly light so that they could be carried by the Viking sailors when needed.

The wood that they were made of was strong but flexible, so that they could be in rough seas and waves.

So Vikings made journeys in these longboats.

They travelled by day and also by night.

They were expert sailors and navigators.

They travelled very long distances in their boats, but they had no maps to help them.

They also had no satellite or GPS like we would be able to use today to navigate.

So no maps, no GPS.

I wonder then how it was that they were such successful navigators and were able to find their way? So how did they know where they were going? I wonder if you have any initial thoughts.

I wonder if you know anything about any other ancient seafaring or sailing peoples and how they were able to navigate themselves.

Pause the video and have a think.

So Vikings travelled by day and by night in shortboats, longboats, or tallboats? Pause the video now and complete the sentence.

Off you go.

Good job, team.

Vikings travelled by day and by night in longboats.

There were those long, narrow boats made of wood that had sails and oars, and a carved front.

Here we have an illustration of Vikings navigating in a longboat.

This is an artist's interpretation of what it might have looked like.

Can you see the longboats with their oars and sails, and their carved fronts? I wonder what else you notice in this picture.

If I were to tell you that Vikings used clues from nature to help them to navigate, I wonder which clues you can see here? What can you see in this picture that would've helped them to find their way? What do you think the Viking sailors in their longboats and navigators may have been looking at? Pause the video.

Look carefully.

Have a think.

So I'm wondering what you managed to see here.

In the daytime, which this picture shows, vikings followed the paths of birds flying over the seas.

This was not dissimilar to how early Polynesian seafarers also navigated.

They also would follow sea creatures, like whales as they swam through the waters.

These birds and these sea creatures would have migration patterns.

These patterns and these different ways could then be followed by the Viking navigators so they knew what way they were going.

They learned the behaviours of these sea creatures and birds, and they could use this to help them navigate and find their way successfully.

True or false? Vikings followed creatures like birds and whales.

And why did they follow them? Pause the video now.

Off you go.

Good job, team.

This is absolutely true.

We know that Vikings did follow sea creatures like whales, and also birds that flew through the air to help them to navigate.

And the reason they did this, they did this to help them navigate their longboats, to help them successfully find their way to where they wanted to go to, and to explore.

How do we know this though? This is a really important question.

We're now going to look at our key word, archaeologist.

Archaeologists are mystery solvers, answer finders, and evidence seekers.

So they find ways to prove historical facts.

They dig up the past to help us to answer questions about times long ago in history.

And we can see an illustration of an archaeologist and their tools here.

Archaeologists have to be very careful when digging up ancient and old artefacts.

By digging these things up and finding these things, they can help us to know more about the past and to prove our theories and knowledge.

As historians we work very closely with archaeologists and vice versa.

Look here.

This is an illustration of a sun-shadow board.

I wonder how this links to Viking seafarers navigating.

How might they have used this tool to help them navigate? Pause the video and have a think.

So, archaeologists have found the remains of sun-shadow boards used by the Vikings.

This gives us evidence to tell us how the Viking navigators and seafarers navigated.

Historians believe that Vikings used these sun-shadow boards to work out which direction they were travelling in.

During the daytime they could look and see where the shadows from the sun lay, and that would help them know which direction they should be going in.

These boards made a shadow in a certain place at different times of the day.

This is evidence that the sun helped the Vikings to work out the direction they were travelling in.

Remember, they had no maps or GPS.

So so far, we know that the Vikings would navigate using birds and other sea creatures, and the sun by using sun-shadow boards like this, and we have evidence of this that archaeologists have found.

Archaeologists have evidence that Vikings navigated very long distances using which natural feature? Trees, tides, or the sun? Pause the video now and select the natural feature that we have evidence of.

Off you go.

Great job, team.

The key thing that we've learned about in this learning cycle, and that we know archaeologists have evidence of, is that vikings used the sun to navigate successfully across the sea and oceans.

They may well have used the tides.

But as historians, it's important that we use accurate evidence, and we have archaeologists that have given us the evidence of these sun boards.

Here we have an illustration of stars in the night sky.

We know that Vikings travelled in their longboats both during the day and also at night.

How do you think Viking navigators would've used the stars when sailing at night to find their way? Pause the video now and have a think.

Great job.

At night, Vikings studied the positions of the moon and stars.

Stars, which are those balls of gas up in space, never change position.

So the Vikings used them like a map of the sky.

They planned routes by heading towards certain stars.

So because they were always in a consistent position, they knew by heading towards one, they would always be going in that direction.

This is incredibly clever.

This meant they could successfully navigate the seas at night at well as during the daytime by using the sun and nature.

So true or false? Vikings planned routes that followed stars like a map of the sky? True or false? Off you go.

Great.

This is absolutely true.

And why did they do this? Well, stars are always in the same place in the sky.

So you can go in the direction of that star consistently and go to the same point.

Very, very clever.

So we have looked at how Vikings travelled, and we've also looked at some archaeological evidence to tell us how they did this.

For this practise task now I'd like you to tell your learning partner about the clues from nature that the Vikings used to find their way.

Here are some words that might help you.

Animals, stars and sun.

Consider everything we've learned in this learning cycle.

Tell your learning partner now.

Off you go.

Brilliant work, team.

You've clearly picked up so much knowledge as to how the Vikings were such successful navigators.

So, your answer may have included that Vikings used clues from nature such as the sun, the stars, and the paths of animals such as birds and whales to find their way.

You could've talked about the sun boards that archaeologists found, the fact that stars are in the same position, so the Vikings managed to use them a bit like a map in the sky, the fact that animals such as birds and whales could be followed, they had consistent patterns that the Vikings learned.

Overall, the Vikings were ingenious navigators and very successful seafarers in their longboats.

So we now know how the Vikings travelled, and we also know about some archaeological evidence.

What we want to look at now is where they expanded to.

We want to now consider where did the Vikings travel to and why? Here we have an illustration of a Viking longboat on a journey.

These journeys could've been very long.

From their homeland In northern Europe, those modern countries of Norway, Denmark and Sweden, the Vikings navigated in their longboats to many far away places.

They travelled along rivers and seas, and even crossed the Atlantic Ocean, going to what would be today North America.

They were expert travellers and sailors.

Here we have a map of the places the Vikings travelled to.

We can see in that light green colour the Viking homeland of modern Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, that part of Scandinavia.

We can see too that light blue colour, the lands where the Vikings settled.

And amazingly, if you look carefully at the red lines and arrows, these are the routes that the Vikings took.

You can see that they went to some extraordinarily far away places.

They travelled both to the east and the west.

The Vikings travelled east through Europe until they reached ports.

Ports are places where the sea meets the land.

Remember, these are those places where boats could load and unload goods and where trade would happen.

The Vikings were excellent traders.

And one of the reasons they needed to trade was so that they could get the goods that their people and themselves needed to live.

There they unloaded at these ports their longboats, and traded their goods with traders from the Middle East and also from Asia.

If we see how far they went into what is modern day Russia, they really did travel far distances.

Vikings traded fish, animal furs, and also sulphur.

Sulphur is a chemical that could be mined, and was particularly useful during this period because it was flammable and could be used to start fires.

It was also a chemical that could be used as a medicine during this period of history.

What did the Vikings do when they reached a port? Remember, a port is a place where you could load and unload goods, where the sea meets the land.

Choose two answers.

Read from A, B, C, and D carefully.

They stopped to have a rest? They traded their animal furs, fish and sulphur? They met traders from far away places such as Asia? They carried out raids? Pause the video now and select the two correct answers.

What did Vikings do when they reached ports? Off you go.

Great job, team.

Well, we can't say whether they stopped to have a rest, but we do know that they traded their animal furs, fish and sulphur with the people they met at these ports.

They also met traders from far away places such as Asia and the Middle East.

A raid is where the Vikings would go in and take items and then leave.

They didn't tend to do this at ports.

Ports were places where they could trade and meet other traders from far away places.

So if we look back at our map here, we can also see that archaeologists have found evidence that the Vikings travelled to the west.

They settled in Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, and even went as far as North America, and we can see those routes in red on our maps here.

In these places, they settled and permanently lived there.

They built new towns and farms as well.

This is one of the key reasons why many Vikings left their homelands, to find fertile new farmland and to settle with their families and create new communities.

So true or false? Vikings travelled to places like the Middle East, Iceland and North America, and why did they travel to these places? Off you go.

This is absolutely true.

Good job.

And if we're thinking about why they went there, the Vikings travelled to find people to trade with and new places to settle down, build new settlements and farm.

Good job, team.

So for our practise task now, what I'd like us to do is to use the knowledge that we have gained from these learning cycles and answer the following questions.

We have two key questions to answer, so listen carefully.

How did the Vikings navigate their longboats? Think back to our previous learning cycle.

Where did the Vikings travel to, and why did they travel there? We have some key pieces of vocabulary to help you below that you might want to include in your answers.

Nature, stars.

Use those when answering question number one.

Trade, ports, east and west.

Use those when answering question number two.

So have a go answering these questions now.

Off you go.

Fantastic job, team.

I'm so impressed with your answers about how the Vikings travelled and why.

You've clearly picked up so much knowledge from these learning cycles.

How did the Vikings navigate for long distances in their longboats? Your answers could've included that Vikings use clues from nature.

Remember, they used clues like whales and birds to help them to navigate.

They also used things such as the stars.

They created a map in the sky at night to travel at night, and they also used sun-shadow boards to help them travel during the day.

They really were excellent navigators and seafarers.

Your answer to question number two, where did the Vikings travel to and why did they travel, could've looked like this.

The Vikings travelled to lots of different ports, those places where they could've loaded and unloaded goods to trade in the east and west.

They did this to trade, and also to find new places to live, to settle down and to farm.

Really great job in History today, team.

We've been considering Viking navigation and expansion.

The Vikings used clues from nature to help them navigate long distances.

They used the paths of birds and sea creatures, as well as the sun, moon, and stars to work out which way to go.

They travelled both during the day and by night at sea.

Archaeologists have found remains of sun-shadow boards that are evidence of how the Vikings navigated.

Remember, this is really key as historians that we back our points up with evidence.

The Vikings travelled to ports in the east to trade with people from Asia, and the Vikings travelled to the west to settle in Iceland, Greenland, and even as far as North America.

Keep up the great history, and I'll see you again soon.