Livening Up Leonardo
After reexamining my curriculum from last year, I noticed that I focused too much on thematic artwork. While my students were exposed to a great number of different artists who worked with similar themes, I felt that my students didn’t have a strong grasp of the lives of individual artists. So in order to address this issue right off the bat, I decided to begin the year with a lesson about Leonardo da Vinci. For this unit, students will learn about da Vinci’s charcoal portraits, his life, as well as some fun interesting facts. For example, did you know da Vinci was a vegetarian? Nope, I didn’t know either.
While searching internet for online resources that my students can use, I came upon these resources that I thought were well worth sharing. So here we go….
The first site that I really liked was Brain Pop. I knew that my school had a Brain Pop account, but I always kind of figured it was a site that focused on the Science and Math. Boy, I couldn’t have been more wrong!! To my pleasant surprise Brain Pop has a whole section on Art and Music! I clicked the Famous Artist and Musician link and found a little icon of da Vinci staring right back at me. His tiny expression seemed to say to me “Dummy, why didn’t you check me out before?” In the section about da Vinci, Brain Pop has a great little animation that answers the question “Why do so many people talk about da Vinci?” In addition, the da Vinci section has quizzes, activities, and a small time line.
Brain Pop also has animations about art movements, techniques, and other artists. I think this has now become my new favorite online resource for kids. I can just kick myself for not looking into Brain Pop sooner!
The second online resource on Leonardo da Vinci is the Universal Leonardo Museum, sponsored by the University of the Arts, London. While some of the text may be advanced for 5th graders, the galleries are great for exploring the vast variety of work that da Vinci is famous for. The images may be accessed through clicking the Explore and Browse tabs in the main navigation bar. What’s most exciting is their Play section. Here visitors to the site can make hybrid monsters, take a quiz that makes the Mona Lisa smile with each correct answer, practice Mirror Writing, and much, much more!