Leonardo Da Vinci Exhibition

Bridge & Patrixbourne CEP School

Leonardo Da Vinci

To commemorate the 500th anniversary of Leonardo Da Vinci’s death, the children of Bridge have been learning about him and his works. Each year group have taken their learning in different directions, inspired by the science, art and inventions of this historical figure.

We hope you enjoy their work.

October 2019

Reception As we settled into our first term in Reception, we have been very busy learning about our new environment. On our tour of the school, we met some of the people who help us - from the office staff to those who work in the kitchen. We learnt that everyone is special, including us!

Some things about us are the same whilst some things about us are different. From there, we started to look at ourselves and built the skills we needed to be able to create our own self-portraits. We felt our faces to find the right shapes and to find where our features go, making sure we chose the right colours when it came to adding paint and pastels.

We are all very proud of our portraits in Reception and all the things that make us special.

Year One To help our understanding of Leonardo Da Vinci Year 1 went to see a model of one of his inventions at Dover Transport Museum. When we saw all of the different vehicles we were inspired to paint and design our own.

We also watched some clips from ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ and saw some of the inventions created by an imaginary inventor.

We also looked at a model steam engine made by Samuel’s Great-Great-Grandad. We have learnt to look carefully when we are drawing, use thick and thin paint to create texture and plan and make our own models.

Year Two In Year 2 we created self-portraits after being inspired by the Mona Lisa picture. The children explored using different mediums (pastels, chalk, pencil, paint and charcoal) and then selected the one they wanted to use for their portrait. We spent a lot of time learning how to draw a face and where to position the features.

We then focused on Leonardo as an inventor, the children became inventors and designed their own houses based on ‘The True Story of the Three Little Pigs’. We linked this to our learning in Science where we had to think about which materials would be best for the different parts of the house.

Year Three We began our learning journey on Leonardo da Vinci by researching who he was and what he is famous for. We thought it would be fun to make our very own notebooks, just like Leonardo did, so we learnt about observational drawing and have been sketching and planning our thoughts and ideas in them but (of course) in secret code!

We looked at the dates of key events in Leonardo’s life and decided that we would create a timeline. In pairs, we were given a date and key event to research in more detail, and then had to think of a way that we could record it.

In English we have studied the text ‘The Flying Boy’ and have written diary entries as our chosen character.

We then moved on to look at skeletons and muscles and how they work; it’s amazing that Leonardo was learning the same as us over 500 years ago! In Maths, we decided to investigate Leonardo’s hypothesis of proportion. We looked carefully at the Vitruvian Man and decided that we would make our own using Poppy so we have our own Vitruvian Girl.

We hope you like our learning!

Year Four Throughout the term, the Year 4 children have focused on the drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci.

On display are the children’s observational drawings of various strange and eclectic items. We discussed how Leonardo Di Vinci used a range of mediums and had a number of different subjects.

In addition, the children explored perspective by drawing outside on drawing frames. The children realised that in order to have more accurate drawings they needed to understand foreground and background as well as vanishing points.

In Year 4, we have linked our Science and Design & Technology learning to Leonardo Da Vinci and parachutes. The children created and tested their own parachutes, investigating how size and shape of the canopy affected the descent of the rocket.

Year Five This term in Year 5 we have been inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci in many ways. The children were introduced to Da Vinci through an orienteering activity which led them to different clues relating to him.

From here they researched and created their own fact files. Furthermore, we have been reading a book called Clockwork, written by Phillip Pullman, where the children have been writing in role in the form of a diary entry.

In Science the children have been identifying the different methods of seed dispersal (linked to Da Vinci’s fascination with flight) and enjoyed engaging in a seed hunt.

In Art we have taken inspiration from Da Vinci’s picture ‘The Last Supper’ and the methods used to create it. The children made their own modern versions of this style of picture called ‘Pastel Fresca’ which was particularly fun and enabled the children to experiment with unusual artwork methods. For DT we were especially interested in how Da Vinci designed a self-supporting bridge and posed a bridge-building challenge to the children. These can be seen on the tables in the classrooms.

Finally, the children have been learning a traditional Italian themed dance (as this was Da Vinci’s origin) that they have performed for you to watch on our boards.

Year Six Year 6 have been inspired and have explored many different aspects of Leonardo Da Vinci’s work. We have been learning about the media tools and techniques used by Leonardo Da Vinci in his artwork. Inspired by his interest in nature, we have been sketching natural form objects from observations, using quill and ink, tempera paint and mixed media.

Following Da Vinci’s obsession with flight and interest in antiquity, we have created our own wings based on the Greek myth of Icarus. During history lessons we learned about the great robbery of the Mona Lisa in 1911 and have created some wanted posters.

We are also very proud of our working catapults which we designed, created and evaluated. It was great fun testing them out!