Our next few weeks will center around Leonardo Da Vinci and a multitude of activities. Da Vinci is famous for his notebooks. He carried one with him wherever he went and they were full of sketches, quotes, ideas, future plans, costs, observations….etc. Our students have agreed to learn by his example and carry their own notebooks. It’s a bit hard to get used to, but we’re hoping it will be a great opportunity as we take on this challenge.
We’ve learned that Da Vinci was a very curious person. He was constantly asking questions AND seeking to find the answers to them as well. We have been thinking about some questions in our own lives and contemplating the best ways to get answers to those questions.
Today we talked about Davinci’s example of seeking for knowledge constantly. He questioned everything and used his own observations to find truth. To think more about this, we each brought an advertisement to class – from magazines, internet and television. We had a great discussion about how cunning the advertisers can be as they vie for our attention. We came to the conclusion that catchy music and beautiful pictures can be very enticing. We questioned whether we were being told the complete truth. One of our students ran across this quote, ”
“Advertising is the art of arresting the human intelligence just long enough to get money from it.”
The time went so quickly and too soon we realized we were late for foreign language. I’ve mentioned before that between sixteen of us, there are five different languages that the students have chosen to learn. Gratefully we have one of our moms who helps with Japanese and an older sister who has just volunteered to help with Spanish. This is very much appreciated! Other languages we are learning are: American Sign Language, German and Finnish. Most of the kids gather together to learn from another and a few prefer to work on their own. It’s all very wonderful!
