To begin our new history topic, Anglo-Saxons and Viking invaders, we went tp Jorvik to learn about how they lived, and ended up over here. It was really interesting to learn how York changed from Roman occupation to Viking and all about the finds under the Coppergate excavation.
The first thing we saw was the foundations of Viking settlements and looked at the size of the houses and what remained of their civilisation. We learnt all about how the findings influenced the designs of the Jorvik-recreated streets, even down to some of the characters, who had been recreated based on skeletons found. Here we are about to board the 'ride' which navigates us through the Viking York Some of the scenes we passed by
We also got to explore the artefacts found during the dig, which are now on display in Jorvik - we had fun spotting the real items we'd seen during our tour and hearing all about them. We then headed over to Dig, to learn about the Viking takeover and how they battled their way through to occupation of most of Northern England. The children had great fun handling and wielding some of the weaponry; I was grateful to be sat at the back for this point of the workshop!
We feel very well placed to learn about our upcoming topic and were glad to have experienced what it might have felt like to be around during those times!