Viking Longhouse Craft

We are learning about the Viking in our history studies. What better way the enhance the learning by adding a craft to the mix. With my kids the crafts make a lasting memory of the subject. The Viking longhouse craft has been no exception.

This is Little Man's Viking Longhouse.

Supplies:

1. Shoe box. I used a child size one.

2. Paper grocery sack or the brown mailing wrap.

3. Clear tape, Elmer glue, and scissors.

4. Utility knife or an exacto knife.

5. Toilet paper or paper towel roll.

6. Flat piece of cardboard to make roof slant. Cut it a little bigger than the size of your shoe box lid

7. Dry moss for the roof covering

8. Craft-sticks and something to cut the sticks. I used a small hand pruner. The kids also broke them by hand. I guess I went to slow for their liking!

I prepared a lot of the craft before hand. I would recommend doing so with younger kids. I put the brown paper on the shoe box before hand. This part would have been to much for my kids.

I first cut out the doors. Don't forget to cut the lid also so the door will open. I forgot the lid on the first box.

 Afterwards I wrapped the boxes in the paper.

The kids did the rest of the craft by themselves.

Glue the toilet paper roll in the middle of the lid. This will hold the pitch on the roof up.

Bend the cardboard in the middle. Add some glue to the top of the toilet paper roll. You will need clear tape to hold the roof down to the shoe-box lid.
 
We ended up stuffing crumpled up paper inside the roof too. Then we added the moss at the edges. You will add glue inside the easement of the roof and have the kids stuff the opening with the moss. Add glue to the top part of the roof and let the kids have a hayday adding the moss. Beware it gets really messy now! That's okay the kids had a lot of fun.

I could only find the painted green moss. I would recommend the unpainted moss. We had green hands, faces, table, and just about everywhere we touched. Glue and green painted moss was not a good mix. However it did clean up nicely on the tables. The kids took a few washes.

Glue the craft-sticks on the shoe-box. Let dry for a whole day if your kids are anything like mine. They went glue happy. The kids made furniture out of the craft-sticks. They also made a fire pit out of rocks.

We are addicted to figures around here. I picked these Viking figures up at Hobby Lobby awhile back. I put them in hiding until we learned about the Vikings.

My kids had fun and learned a lot about the Vikings. 

*Update 1/2019 my kids still remember this craft and they also recall a lot about the Vikings because it was hands on learning.