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Celebrate Norway’s National Day with some interesting Norway Crafts for Kids! Learn about Vikings, fjords, rosemåling and much more!

Frozen is one of the most popular movies of all time, and not only among kids! The movie takes place in the fictional town of Arendelle, but do you know the real place this fictional town is based on?

It’s the gorgeous Nordic country of Norway!

Anyone who’s been to Norway will be able to instantly identify the landscapes that look like Norwegian fjords. The castles resemble stave churches, and even the clothes the people of Arendelle wear are similar to traditional 18th-century Norwegian outfits!

Interesting Facts about Norway

• The World Happiness Report often features Norway among the top 10 happiest countries in the world
• Norway tops the medal count at the Winter Olympics, with most medals in skiing, skating and biathlon
• The longest road tunnel in the world is in Norway, known as the Lærdal Tunnel
• Norway is the country with the longest midnight sun, where the sun doesn’t set for over 24 hours
• Norway has a very long coastline, the second longest in the world, the first being Canada

If you’re wondering why we’re talking about Norway today, it’s because two of the country’s special holidays are in this month – Ascension Day,  celebrated 39 days after Easter, and Constitution Day on 17th May.

Constitution Day is called Syttende Mai in Norwegian and commemorates the signing of the Norwegian constitution in 1814. It is generally celebrated with parades, parties and lots of feasts. We are going the crafty route, and celebrating with some fun and interesting Norway crafts for kids!

20 Notable Norway Crafts for Kids

1. Arctic Fox Paper Crown

We start our list of Norway crafts for kids with one of the ‘Big Five’ animals of Norway – the Arctic Fox! These foxes can be found across the archipelago of Svalbard, and over 90% of the foxes are white – not easy to spot against the ice! Here’s a printable Arctic Fox paper crown that you can use to pretend to be one of the Big Five!

2. Adorable Polar Bear Hug Bookmark

With Norway being near the North Pole, it’s only natural that it’s home to polar bears! In fact, Svalbard in Norway has even got the nickname ‘The Realm of the Polar Bears‘, since it has one polar bear for every 10 humans – that’s a lot of polar bears! But no one’s complaining, especially if they look as cute as these guys here!

3. Viking Longboat Craft

You can’t talk about Norway crafts for kids without featuring the Vikings, an integral part of Norwegian history! There are still many Viking villages around Norway, along with museums. Here, The Spirited Puddle Jumper shows us how to make a Viking longboat – a traditional boat with a long, narrow shape, that could be used even in shallow water. These boats often had animal heads at the prow, or the front. You can learn more at a dedicated museum for Viking boats and ships – the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo.

4. Norway Northern Lights Craft

Norway welcomes over 6 million tourists a year, and most of them are here to see the Northern Lights! Norway is bang in the middle of the ‘Aurora Zone’, a region where the Northern Lights are most visible. Little Explorers Big World has a free printable that helps us create some gorgeous Aurora-themed art – a must try in this list of Norway crafts for kids!

5. Upcycled No-Sew Norwegian Christmas Gnomes

While most countries around the world celebrate Christmas Eve on 24th December, Norway has a special celebration on the 23rd, called Lille Juleaften, or ‘Little Christmas Eve’. Every family has their own traditions for this day, including decorating their homes with Christmas gnomes. They may even leave out little bowls of porridge for gnomes who live in the woods! Pillar Box Blue shows us how to make some upcycled Nordic gnomes that don’t require any sewing.

6. Air Dry Clay Viking Rune Name Sign

In the Playroom has an interesting addition to our list of Norway crafts for kids – a name sign in the language of Viking runes! Runes are the letters of the Viking language called Old Norse. Each rune also had a special meaning, like wealth or sea. Rune messages were often carved onto wood, stone or bone, and they were often used for functional purposes like letters or labels.

7. DIY Primstav Norwegian Calendar Stick

A very interesting part of Norwegian culture is the Primstav, a long calendar stick that marks seasons, religious hoildays and farm-related tasks. One side of the Primstav was for summer, and the other for winter. Days were denoted by notches on the stick, and additional symbols were used for special days. Eva Varga helps us understand this better by showing us how to make our own Primstav!

8. The Scream Yarn Painting Tutorial

Did you know that one of the most iconic and instantly identifiable masterpieces was painted by a Norwegian painter? We’re talking about Edvard Munch, whose 1893 painting ‘The Scream’ became so famous that multiple attempts were made over the years to steal it! Woo Jr. recreates the painting with yarn, which gives it quite an interesting effect!

9. DIY LEGO Norwegian Flag

The Norwegian flag has red, blue and white, which makes it quite easy to reproduce with Lego bricks, as Mama Miss shows! The flag has a red base and a blue Scandinavian cross with a white border. The red and blue represent Denmark and Sweden, Norway’s union partners. The cross represents Christianity and is an extension of the flags of other Nordic countries. 

10. Nordic Woven Felt Heart

A common item seen in Norwegian homes during Christmas is the  julekurv or hjertekurv – a heart-shaped paper basket, often woven from red and white paper. They’re filled with little treats and surprises and hung on the Christmas tree for kids to find on Christmas morning. Benzie Design shows us how to create these woven baskets using felt instead of paper, so they’re more durable.

11. DIY Norwegian Christmas House Blocks

Most visitors to Norway don’t miss a trip on the Flåm railway – one of the most beautiful railway routes in the world. It runs through gorgeous mountainsides, waterfalls and tunnels, and you’ll often find little red and white houses nestled among the hillside greenery. Lulu the Baker shows us how to create our own versions of these little houses so we can set up a little Nordic Christmas village!

12. Nordic Hanging Egg Shells Easter Decor

Easter is a huge deal in Norway, since it is also a celebration of the beginning of spring. In fact, Norway is said to have the world’s longest Easter holiday! It begins from Maundy Thursday and extends to Second Easter Day, which is the Monday following Easter Sunday. One Easter tradition is to fill cardboard eggs with treats and hide them for kids to find. Another is to paint empty eggs and hang them on pussy willow twigs with yellow daffodils – which is apt since daffodils are called Easter lilies in Norway! Get a tutorial on how to do the latter over at Living a Nordic Life!

13. Toilet Paper Roll Troll Craft

Here’s another thing you can’t miss in a list of Norway crafts for kids – trolls! And no, these aren’t the movie trolls – these are mythical human-like beings in Norwegian folklore. Trolls are believed to live in caves and mountains and only venture out at night, since sunlight is dangerous for them. If a troll gets caught by sunlight, it turns into stone! If you visit Norway, you’ll find troll faces carved into cliffs and rocks, which represent trolls turned into stone. Well, we have a troll made of paper, thanks to this project from DLTK Kids!

14. Rosemåling Painting Tutorial

Rosemåling means ‘decorative painting’ in Norwegian and is a kind of rural folk art that originated in Norwegian valleys in the 1700s. It generally involves painting floral shapes in flowing patterns, and each valley has its own style of rosemåling. Sea Lemon has a tutorial that shows us how to create our own rosemåling art, with detailed instructions.

15. Norwegian Cardboard Ice Shanty STEM Project

Ice fishing is a popular activity in Norway, since it has ice for many months in a  year. Ice fishing involves catching fish through an opening in the ice, and this requires the fishermen to spend time in ice huts or ice shanties on frozen lakes. These are usually portable sheds dragged to the lake on a truck or snowmobile. Barley and Birch has a STEM project that encourages us to build our own ice shanty, that even has the Norwegian flag on it!

16. Viking Yggdrasil Tree Craft

One of the best things about making these Norway crafts for kids is that you get to learn a lot about Norwegian folklore, like the Yggdrasil tree. The Vikings believed that this tree was at the centre of the cosmos, and that the entire universe was held together by its branches and roots. Baker Ross creates a model of this magical tree, which is also home to mythical creatures like giants and elves!

17. DIY Nobel Prize Medal Replica

You’ve heard about the Nobel prizes, but did you know that the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony is held in Oslo every year? Although most of the Nobel prizes are awarded in Sweden, the Nobel Peace Prize alone is handled by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, according to Alfred Nobel’s will. Crayola shows us how to create a model of the Nobel Prize medal, and kids can use this opportunity to learn more about this respected award.

18. Paper Bag Moose Craft

The moose is Norway’s largest living land mammal, and it is also the country’s national animal! Norway has many moose safaris for tourists, and you can also see one of the world’s largest moose statues in Stor-Elvdal, which serves to remind drivers to keep an eye out for wandering moose! Made to be a Momma has a cute little moose craft, and this guy also wears a patterned blue scarf!

19. Wooden Peg Viking Dolls

Vikings are an important part of Norway’s history, but there’s a Viking who’s also a part of modern technology! We’re talking about Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson, who was the king of Denmark and Norway. Today’s Bluetooth system is named after him, and even the logo is a combination of the rune version of his initials – H (ᚼ) and B (ᛒ). Baker Ross celebrates Viking heritage with these cute Viking dolls, named Bjorn and Helga!

20. Free Printable Norway for Kids Book

Norwegians are the biggest readers in the world, with each person spending approximately $76 a year on books. Norway publishes around 2,000 books every year, with the majority released around Easter. Most of the Easter releases are murder mysteries, called ‘Paskekrimmen’ or ‘Easter Thrillers’! These Norway crafts for kids help us join the Norwegians by reading more, with a printable mini book from 123homeschool4me!

We hope these Norway crafts for kids have got you interested in learning more about this amazing country, and perhaps even visiting there someday! I know I’ve got Norway on my travel bucket list, and I hope I can make a trip to the Nordic country come true soon!