Fun Fact of the Day

DID YOU KNOW?
Do you think Greenland gets its name for how green the island is? Actual fact that it isn’t green! Over 80% of the island is covered with ice! This adds up to be about 1.8 million square kilometers

Today’s Activity

Eric the Red – Explored Greenland in A.D. 982

Today, we are going to learn a little about one of the first explorers of Greenland, Eric the Red. Eric the Red was a Viking and got his nickname from his red hair and beard and also his bad temper.  After being kicked out of almost everywhere he lived including Iceland, Eric and his men set sail for the island a man they knew called Gunnbjarnar Skerries.  Once they reached the east coast, they found a glacier so they started sailing towards the south hoping for a more promising area to settle in. They sailed into warm waters on the southwest side of the island and they then spent 3 years living there. During each summer they would go and explore the island and on the third summer they sailed back to Iceland. Eric tried to convince the people to immigrate to the land he had explored and he renamed the island as “Greenland” because he thought that more people would go and settle there if the name sounded attractive and nice. Eric recruited 25 ships to sail to Greenland with him in the year A.D. 986 but only 14 reached there. The others were either lost at sea or returned back to Iceland.

Math Brain Thinker of the Day:

Out of 25, how many ships did not make it to Greenland in the year A.D. 986 with Eric the Red?