Artist Study - Da Vinci

This week we are doing a quick mini unit on Leonardo da Vinci. Princess K is fascinated with his paintings and Little Man is fascinated with his inventions/sketchings of things beyond Da Vinci’s time. This isn’t a planned artist study at all. We are studying Da Vinci because the kids are interested in him. This is why I love homeschool. If the kids were in any other school situation, they would have to learn about whomever is next on the list and most likely only remember what is needed for the test and quickly forgetting it after. However, because they are interested in him, they are retaining almost everything they are reading.
We started with a quick overview of his life on Monday and the kids did a modified notebooking page of it. (Not lapbooking this one, we are still working on 3 other lapbooks.) On Tuesday, the kids all did a color page of the Mona Lisa. It was so fun watching them all see the painting differently. Little G loved doing this assignment too.

Little Man's

Princess K's

Miss H's

Little G's

Still to come this week are some of his sketches of his inventions and of course his fresco of the Last Supper. I am sure the kids will come up with more that they want to learn. We will also practice mirror writing. Da Vinci wrote backwards because then he could keep some secrecy in his notes and he was left handed so this kept the ink from smudging.

Here are some great sites that I found for our study that I thought I would share.
Leonardo da Vinci Biography.com
Da Vinci - The Genius
Enchanted Learning - Leonardo da Vinci