Learning About Leanardo Da Vinci

I did a unit in school about Leonardo Da Vinci. This unit included reading books about Leonardo Da Vinci, watching movies about Leonardo Da Vinci, and reading websites about Leonardo Da Vinci. Some books I read about Leonardo were:


• The Da Vinci Cod by Chris Riddell

• Leonardo Da Vince by Kathleen Krull

• The Second Mrs. Giaconda by E.L. Konigsburg

• Amazing Leonardo Da Vinci Inventions by Maxine Anderson

• Who Can Crack The Leonardo Da Vinci Code? By Thomas Brezina

• Masters Of Art Leonardo Da Vinci

• Getting To Know The World’s Greatest Artists Leonardo Da Vinci

• Leonardo Da Vinci Dreams, Schemes, and Flying Machines

• The Importance Of Leonardo Da Vinci

• Neo Leo


Who Can Crack The Leonardo Da Vinci Code? By Thomas Brezina



The book who can Crack the Leonardo Da Vinci Code? Is a time travel mystery about a young boy who lives in present time and goes through a panting of Leonardo, which takes him into the past when Leonardo lived. He went through time so that he could solve a riddle and open a box left behind from Leonardo. This book was a funny, historical fantasy book.



Making Monalisa Smile by Nick D Alt

In my unit I also read an article in the magazine Odyssey: Adventures in Science that talked about a computer that could read peoples smiles and figure out if they are happy, angry, frustrated, or confused. This could be useful for when people are learning a new language with a computer program which does not make sense. The computer can change the lesson making it easier to understand. I do not think it would be very helpful though because if you’re in the middle of something and then get hit by a rock you wince and everything your reading changes so you have to read it all over again and when you face settles down and you were half way done with what you were reading it changes again.




Leonardo’s Horse by Jean Fritz



One of the other books in my Leonardo Da Vinci unit was a book about Leonardo building a really big hoarse out of copper. In the book he said that he would make the ears of the horse pointing back to show that it was listening to its rider’s commands. It also said that Leonardo made a clay model first. At the end of the book it said that the horse was completely destroyed in an enemy attack. In real life he built the clay model but never got around to building the copper version. So it is a good historical fiction because it brought the story to life but it is not very factual.




I watched a movie called Leonardo Da Vinci. It showed all of his paintings and some of his inventions in a funny way. That made it easier to understand. I did not like it very much because I thought it was too cartoony. Although little kids (I call my Minions) might like it.



I watched a bunch of TV shows on YouTube called Doing Da Vinci in it they built a tank, a war caret, and a sedge tower! Here is a link to the videos: http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/doing-davinci-tank-test.html


My visit to a Leonardo Museum


A while ago I went to a museum exhibit about Leonardo it was filled with Leonardo inventions here is a list of the inventions from it:

• A tank

• A bridge ( me and dad argued whether it would work )

• A flying contraption

• And a weird canon



Here is a picture from it:

I’m the one in the green jacket.




Mrs.Giaconda by E.L.konigsburg

One of the last books I read was about Leonardo Da Vinci’s life from the point of view of his helper Salai. The book said that Salai used to be a pickpocketer! It also said that Leonardo needed Salai so that the tame Leonardo could live with the crazy criminal Salai but that’s mushy gushy deep feeling it is too boring blah. I think that the book was supposed to be about why Leonardo made the Monalisa but its more about his life.


Here are some not so fun facts:


• Did you know that Leonardo had a rival? He did! His rivals name was Michelangelo the two artists don’t get along. Leonardo made his artwork more realistic but Michelangelo did not like that.

• Did you know that Leonardo helped with community problems? He ones stopped a plague in a city! He invented a Sewer that got rid of the waist that was making it!

• Leonardo Da Vinci took three years to paint the Monalisa!

• The renaissance ( the time when Leonardo Da Vinci was alive ) means rebirth

Here are some links to books I read. ( if you were going to get something on amazon please use the link from my blog, i get money :D)