Educational programs

Knowledge through experiences

Lejre Land of Legends offers a learning landscape with high ceilings. Here you and your pupils/children can get the past right under the skin.

As an educational activity center, Lejre Land of Legends makes abstract knowledge concrete, inspired by an old Chinese proverb:

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I try and I understand.

Learning with all the senses

Learning by doing is the keynote when students work in communities of practice. “Learning is doing and doing is learning” is supported with methods such as historical workshop work, apprenticeship, the drama method “learning in role”, embodied learning and dialogue-based teaching.

These are the basic elements of our pedagogical, community-strengthening work, where hands explore what this is all about. All lessons promote knowledge, understanding and application, and there are different forms of knowledge at play. Activities are meaningful, comprehensible and manageable.

Supports common goals

Lejre Land of Legends’ learning programs encourage individual subjects and interdisciplinary work in school in the subjects of history, Danish, culinary arts, nature/technology, social studies, visual arts, crafts and design, biology, geography and Christian studies.

The offers support the Common Goals and the subjects’ subject objectives according to the National Education Act and help develop students’ competencies and skills in various subjects.

Primary school

Pupils’ historical awareness of the relationship between past and present, interpretation and communication of time and space is emphasized.

This familiarizes students with Danish history and culture and puts their own lives and living conditions into perspective. They can relate critically to source material, either in the form of reconstructions, historical accounts or in dialog with a historical eyewitness working in role.

In Lejre Land of Legends, students embark on a journey through time, encountering and creating historical scenarios that help develop their insight into people’s lives and living conditions through the ages. This promotes students’ competence in the use of history and develops their knowledge and skills for action.

A course in Lejre Land of Legends is an educational journey that increases understanding of chronology and allows students to acquire skills and knowledge.

The history canon points of the Ertebølle culture, Emperor Augustus and the Jelling monuments are supported in our historical environments from the Stone Age, Iron Age and Viking Age. Vocabulary and technical language come into play and students can see themselves and others with new eyes. It requires teamwork and cooperation, and not least, it contributes to community and the development of social skills and identity formation.

For the little ones

For the “little people” from daycare centers, there are plenty of opportunities for wonderment, learning and development of skills according to the educational curriculum.

Children can explore the landscape and nature and develop social skills by gathering around the common third. By paying attention to each other, they expand their conceptual world with linguistic awareness of all that the eye sees and the body feels. They challenge their bodies with different physical activities, such as walking on different surfaces, cobblestones, gravel and grass, as well as getting acquainted with a different ancient culture and moving in a foreign world.

If you have any requests for special educational programs, or if there are topics you would like to have highlighted, the School Service in Lejre Land of Legends is happy to hear from you.

Use us for whatever you want to do

If you would like to use Lejre Land of Legends as an “extra classroom” in connection with Open School, you can set up a subscription scheme.

If you have any requests for special educational programs, or if there are topics you would like us to cover, we would love to hear from you.

Stone Age

General learning objectives

Students will learn about life in the Stone Age and relate to cultural-geographical processes that form the basis of human living conditions. Students can investigate, put into perspective their own life world and put their first-hand experiences into words.

Students practice using history, understanding chronology and get a sense of intangible sources of prehistoric lifestyles. They can draw parallels to other contemporary ways of life and can help create prehistoric scenarios themselves.

You can book the following courses:

• “The first hunters and fishermen in Denmark“: The course provides an opportunity to interpret and understand values, culture and living conditions in the Stone Age. Students can use tools and implements in relation to the form and function of the product. Students can strengthen their ability to empathize and identify. They can learn about Ice Age culture with all its transcontinental ready-made knowledge.
• “From Ice Age hunter to forester“: Students can describe changes in livelihoods and production in relation to the Stone Age. The student can put scientific and technological development in historical perspective.

---

The Stone Age

Between Ranaa and Athra, students are greeted by the sight of abandoned huts or emergency camps from the times between the two periods: the Maglemose (approx. 9,000-6,200 BC) and Kongemose (6,200-5,400 BC) cultures and the associated graves, hunting pits and fishing fences.

The area has a time-neutral play area with a large lavu-tent that can accommodate a whole class in case of bad weather and for eating packed lunches.

The Iron Age

General learning objectives

Students gain knowledge of life in the Iron Age and of non-Christian religions and beliefs.

Students can investigate, put into perspective their own life world and put their first-hand experiences into words.

Students practice using history and understanding chronology by helping to create historical scenarios.

You can book the following courses:

• “A day in Lethra“: The course supports students’ historical awareness and understanding of chronology, brings different source material (reconstructions, stories and eyewitness accounts from the instructors’ characters) into play, supports source-critical analysis and leaves room for students’ own interpretations and reflection on the interaction with their own life world.
• “Meet a Gallic migration“: The course supports chronological understanding. Students can relate to life’s ethical issues such as refugee problems and can compare their experiences with their own knowledge and experience. The course uses different source material (reconstructions, narratives and eyewitness accounts from the instructor’s character) and supports source-critical analysis. Students can use source-critical concepts to explain interpretations of the past based on simple problems. Students will strengthen their ability to empathize and identify. Students will strengthen their ability to wonder and ask questions.
• “The Gifts of the Gods“: The course is under construction and is therefore not offered in 2025 and 2026.

---

The Iron Age

The class is welcomed into the territory of the farming community with residential houses, a weaving house, a wood forge and a smithy with an iron extraction site and a fence house. In addition to several small buildings, Lethra is associated with cultivated fields, field and forest overgrowth, an atmospheric sacrificial bog and a burial ground. In their roles, several of the villagers have become acquainted with the Celts and Romans, for better or worse. As eyewitnesses, they can talk about their equipment, experiences and relationships.

The Viking Age

General learning objectives

Students relate to cultural-geographical processes that form the basis for human living conditions. They can consider and act in relation to social and cultural contexts and issues. They investigate, put into perspective and articulate their reflections.

Students strengthen their ability to empathize and identify. They learn about their own strengths and abilities, see themselves and others with “new” eyes and are part of a useful community where cooperation, togetherness and kindness are desired and required.

You can book the following courses:

• “A day as a Viking“: The course supports body awareness, movement patterns and craftsmanship as an interpretive framework for understanding the values, culture and living conditions of the Viking Age. Students can apply craft techniques and embodied experiences in practice, reflect on this and translate it into new practices in craft, sport and play. Students gain knowledge of non-Christian religions and beliefs.
• “Viking Sports“: The course supports versatile sports practice and the desire to move. Students learn about Viking sports culture and can relate it to their life world. They use their bodies and train skills to be part of a committed community and work together.
• “The Gifts of the Gods“: The course is under construction and will therefore not be offered in 2025 and 2026.

---

The Viking Age

In the Viking area, we offer day courses of either 1½ or 3 hours and camp school stays from one to four nights as traveling Vikings or as shepherds. In the Viking Age, children were often sent away from their homes to be raised on another farm. With their foster parents, they learned new customs and how to behave in the world. As foster sons and daughters of the Vikings of Lejre Land of Legends, you will take on the role of foster sons and daughters and participate in Viking life with activities that promote cooperation and community. You learn to strengthen and support the community you are in, and you learn to be a good friend and kinsman, taking responsibility for your own life and looking out for others. The facilitators work in costume and role as Vikings.

the 1850s

General learning objectives

Students gain insight into rural life in the 1800s.

Students can investigate, put into perspective their own life world and put their first-hand experiences into words.

Students practice using history and understanding chronology by helping to create historical scenarios.

You can book the following courses:

• “Homesteaders in the 1850s“: The course supports food awareness and cooking techniques and provides opportunities to interpret meals with an understanding of the values, culture and living conditions of rural life. Students can use utensils and tools in relation to the form and function of the product.

---

the 1850s

In Krikkebjerghuse, students can immerse themselves in the life of a country householder’s children in the 1800s. They will be greeted by two smallholders in country dress and experience that children had to help with daily chores from an early age.

Sagnlandet’s smallholders are quick to get the students started chopping wood, feeding the animals, fetching water, churning butter and teaching them some of the important everyday crafts. They also like to tell stories about life in the 1800s for the younger students and put into perspective the youth, literature and political changes of the time for the older students. The physical setting, hands-on activities and historical stories help to promote students’ learning and immersion in 19th-century life.

The bonfire valley

Area general learning objectives

Students use their bodies and practice skills in community and collaboration. Students can use tools and implements in relation to the form and function of the product.

Students gain experience in ancient technologies.

The course is free when admission is paid.

---

The bonfire valley

In the middle of Lejre Land of Legends you will find Båldalen. This is an ancient experimental center where you can try your hand at ancient techniques and technology. It is an activity area where children and adults are welcomed by an educator who gives an introduction and instruction to the various activities in relation to technological understanding.