Vikings

I went to Largs on Saturday afternoon to the Viking Festival. It was really good. I went first to the Viking Village where lots of Vikings were living - they had accommodation, a smithy, etc and were demonstrating weaponry, weaving & spinning, food & cooking, etc. I got some useful ideas for project work with primary age children, and took a lot of photos which will hopefully be useful too. There were several different Viking re-enactment socities involved in the festival - they all do school visits in their local areas and one of them has even been to Shetland on school visits, so maybe Orkney is a possibility too... I was taught Viking 'knittting' (for want of a better word) and they kindly gave me a cardboard template of the 'loom' so I can hopefully teach pupils how to do it and make a strand for a friendship bracelet or something.

I went to the excellent craft & food fair too - and got some of the best dried fruit I've ever tasted. Then I headed off to Kip Marina where I sat in the car reading about Early Years education and the 3-5 curriculum for a few hours, before the Battle of Largs. More about this later.