Leonardo's Trebuchet and a Kingdom of Your Own.

We learnt how during the Renaissance years, the kingdoms, duchies, city-states and republics that made up what we know today as Italy, were in constant fear of attack from their neighbours.  Leonardo, offering himself as a military engineer to Ludovico Sforza, ruler of Milan, designed weapons, fortifications and military machines.  Many of his designs are used today: tanks, temporary bridges, life preservers and the step ladder.   He continues to amaze us!

 So Papa made a trebuchet!  Because he can and because he's awesome.

We used marbles, dice, lego and bouncy balls to work out which went the furthest and which was most effective at knocking down fortresses!

Two kiddies built a fortress and two kiddies, using our calculations for distances, fired the trebuchet and eventually successfully demolished it!

The children then designed their own duchies, republics or kingdoms.  They had some great ideas for peaceful living, generous laws and eco-houses.

After lunch the two littlies studied The Three Foxes by A.A. Milne and the two eldest spent the afternoon making an educational video about Iambic Pentameters, which they are learning about in their poetry work.  It was awesome.  I just need to fit it all together so I can post it on here!

We finished the day with trampolining!

Ballet Girl spent the weekend sailing on the lakes and passed her Level 1 Power Boating Course.  I am a proud Mama!  She is at Sea Cadets this evening with her Royal Marine Sergeant Papa.

Natural Paints and Making Plastic

Before the Renaissance, painters in the Middle Ages used paints made by mixing various colour pigments with egg to make egg tempera.  It had major limitations for Renaissance painters: it couldn't be stored and it dried quickly.  This is where oil paints became invaluable but having used oil paints ourselves, we wanted to give egg tempera a try.

The children ground and dried mud, sand and brick dust.

And mixed it with egg yolk.

 

Leonardo da Vinci invented plastic!  I had no idea he had done this and neither did anyone else for over 400 years!  In 2004 an Italian scholar discovered a recipe Leonardo had written to make 'plastic glass'.  

We had a go ourselves with cream and vinegar.

The main thing we learnt with this experiment is that is smells revolting.  Utterly revolting.

We did manage to make some small pieces of plastic but it was all just so revolting and yellowy-disgusting-ness that I just cannot share the photo!

Leonardo da Vinci loved practical jokes and he often pranked his friends with invisible ink.  We made some out of a bicarb paste and dyed vinegar.

Corn on the cob for lunch.

The Boy continued his inventing theme and made a tree safety catcher, i.e. if you're stuck in a tree you can be rescued quite easily with one of these.  Awesome :)

Leonardo da Vinci - The INVENTOR

This morning we illustrated da Vinci's canal lock idea which, 500 years later, is still in use!

We read about his incredible parachute design which was finally realised using original materials in 2000.  The result?  A smooth, perfect descent over the skies of Africa.  Incredible!

The children designed their own parachutes...

They spent the rest of the morning inventing!

Ballet Girl invented an all-powerful, all weapon resistant tank.

Monkey girl made a temperature gauge - similar to the sats machine she has seen used for The Boy's asthma checks - but a little more fun!

And a weather buggy...

...paper smoother... 

...and a copter gun.

Panda Girl made a time machine!

And a flying camper van.

 The Boy helped Mummy make a salad for lunch

...and worked hard on adding and taking away before gymnastics.  He gave each sum a story and it made it so much more fun :)

Self Portraits and The Study of Facial Features

We read about Leonard da Vinci's painting The Last Supper and how he scoured the streets looking for inspiration for the faces of the Apostles.  The children tried it out for themselves.

Monkey Girl's self portrait

 Panda Girl's self portrait

Ballet Girl's self portrait

The Boy's self portrait

Features using water colour on canvass

This afternoon Panda Girl and The Boy learnt Robert Louis Stevenson's fabulous From a Railway Carriage poem which sounds just like a steam train when you read it in rhythm, 

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.
Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And here is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart runaway in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill, and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone forever! 

They loved it and The Boy spent ages gazing at steam trains on the internet.

In their poetry study Monkey Girl and Ballet Girl learnt about this:

A foot is a unit of metre, consisting of a combination of stressed and unstressed syllables. If stressed syllables are marked "/" and unstressed "u", the main types can be shown thus:

Iamb: [ u / ], such as "delight". (The adjective is "iambic".)

Trochee: [ / u ], such as "badger" (Trochaic)

Anapest, or anapaest: [ u u / ], such as "unaware" (Anapestic / anapaestic)

Dactyl: [ / u u ], such as "multiple" (Dactylic)

Panda Girl requested time to measure things with our new meter rule.

The Boy requested maths time in front of the steam trains.

Mapwork 

Nature Study write up.

We finished the day with trampolining lessons, Minecraft and Sea Cadets.  Phew!