Pre-dig Days: Italian Renaissance

Pre-dig Days: Italian Renaissance (for 5 – 12 year olds)

This year we decided to focus on the artists and scientists of the period before the dig. We have found that the more we know, the more we get out of a Dig, although there is lots of be learned if one just walks in too! Here is a possible schedule, of course it would vary with the ages and interests of the people involved.

Day 1 – 10 – 2pm – Art & Artists

Bring your own ‘bag’ lunch. Tentative schedule!

1. Brief introduction to the period – perhaps with a time line and black line maps

2. (?) intro to art & artists – by ?

3. daVinci presentation – by child

create a Mona Lisa off your own with a present day person. For ideas:

1. Lesson Plan: http://members.aol.com/TWard64340/Renaissance.htm#Leonardo
2. Mostly questions for you to use: Mona Lisa Images for a Modern World: A Teacher's Guide by Robert A. Baron
   
3. Ideas for Mona Lisa Parodies
   
4. Upside down Modern Mona (more art/drawing, less really Mona Lisa)
   

Maybe discuss Davinci’s Mona Lisa – monochromatic, review shading & tinting? How it is the most copies art piece in the world? Mona Art and Mona kids versions to show after.

Mona Lisa painting info (& timeline), landscape/background, more landscape, and about the dress. Or, for more background and what scientists have found on the Mona Lisa, see:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa (Look at the detail of the background, left side to see a tiny bit of column in the picture)
• Austen, Ian, “New Look at ‘Mona Lisa’ Yields Some New Secrets”, New York Times, Published: September 27, 2006, http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/arts/design/27mona.html
• The Louvre’s “A Closer Look” web site http://www.louvre.fr/llv/dossiers/detail_oal.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673229908&CURRENT_LLV_OAL%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673229908&bmLocale=en

4. Michelangelo presentation – requested

Check out the sonnet Michelangelo wrote about how painful standing on scaffolding and painting the ceiling of the Sistine chapel was

5. Donatello representation – requested

Share additive style sculpture done at home following Tabitha Wards’ Elementary Lesson Plans (distributed in advance) from: http://members.aol.com/TWard64340/Renaissance.htm#Donatello

(Warning – while we like her page, it does repeat a myth about Michelangelo as fact. Despite what C. Heston did in the film, we know that Michelangelo stood to paint the Sistine Chapel, using scaffolding he designed himself. We avoided her “ceiling painting” exercise for didactic reasons.)

6. Other (other artists?, perspective, architecture) Victoria & Alberts has some nice resources on Raphael and his painted designs for tapestries that might help.)

7. Renaissance game (if time permits, but we won't be gambling!)

Day 2 (10 – 2 with lunch break) – Scientists

(with a themed potluck of Italian Renaissance food – sign up in advance.) So, where does one learn about Renaissance Italy food and recipes?

Tentative!

1. Galileo’s work – by ?

Scientific method intro – by child

Display Telescopes made at home and discuss seeing the moon. For ideas, see:
http://amasci.com/amateur/teles.html

I'm disappointed by Home Training Tools' "make a simple telescope" directions, unless you happen to have the right lenses around the house! They sell a kit for $13 with what you need, and individual lenses for a more do-it-yourself approach. I really liked their astrolabe directions - this tool has been around for 1000 years reaching its heyday in 1400-1500.

Activity 1. Re-create Galileo experiments (perhaps acceleration? his experiments with motion?). The group leader may want to consider these links – as well as the space they have and the abilities of their group. Please point out that we don’t really know whether Galileo actually ever dropped cannon balls from the Tower of Pisa!

1. http://galileo.rice.edu/lib/student_work/experiment95/inclined_plane.html
2. http://galileo.rice.edu/lib/student_work/experiment96/trajectorybackground.html
3. Falling Balls – experiment 1
   http://www.materialworlds.com/sims/Galileo/worksheet1.html
4. Period of a Pendulum – Large Angle
   http://www.explorelearning.com/index.cfm?method=cResource.dspExpGuide&ResourceID=454
5. Registration is required to access experiments from teachers’ domain – but they have about a dozen based on Galileo:
   http://www.teachersdomain.org/app/search/run_search?terms=galileo

Discussion 2. “other Renaissance discoveries”

"war, armor an& weapons" - by child
"Occupations in the Renaissance" - by child

compass – new to Europe
printing press – new to Europe

presentation on libraries & books of the time – by child
(may include impact of printing press in general, or on religion and authors)

3. Renaissance game (if time)