Da Vinci Days with a bunch of Little Leonardos

For these last two days, we spent much of our time doing a hodge podge of activities that helped us get to know Leonardo Da Vinci.

We began with Robot creations. Leonardo is so famous for his inventions. He had an amazing mind...and we found out that so do our boys!!!
Just look at these robots! I think they turned out so cute!

We decided we want to also work on creating some flying inventions, since that was some of Leonardo's favorite inventions. We are going to watch and study birds, and things that fly for the next couple of weeks and when we get back together for Thanksgiving, we will have another day to invent!

Our next activity was so fun...One minute Nature sketches. We basically just took a walk around the block (it had been a drizzly, rainy day, and so the small window of sunshine was perfect to get some fresh air!). All the boys had their own pad and pencil, and whenever I yelled, "STOP!", they would stop where ever they were, pick an item of interest, and take 1 minute to sketch it.
They all loved this activity, and I was very impressed with their sketches. I am quite often amazed at what such young minds produce. It encourages me to try harder to give them activities where they are able to use their OWN creativity and be free to let their talents shine.


We didn't have time to do the painting project while our cousins were with us, but we did have a lot of fun creating these mosaics. We used the foam pad sheets...and I thinks the boys enjoyed cutting all the little squares as much as they enjoyed putting together their designs.

Our last activity which was my favorite, and I think maybe a favorite for all were sculptures. Oh, I think I could do stuff like this forever...I think it is so much fun.
I have been wanting to make a Family Home Evening board, so we made FACES to represent each member of the family. Each person made their own face (except for Max). We used sculpy clay which you cook and the dough hardens so you can keep it forever.

The top is Alisha's family and the bottom is ours. I just love these! How can you forget family home evening when you have such a cute reminder???