STAB 2017

"Man and Moon" - Inspired by ancient cave artists - Painted in 2016, using geranium nectar By Matteo Today we examined prehistoric cave paintings from France and Spain. These paintings are the first known examples of art created by humans. They are  beautiful . The students made some great comments about the paintings: Bjorn :  I think the Stone Age people painted animals instead of humans because they were using the cave walls as a place to make hunting plans.  Cole :  The prehistoric people drew animals on the caves as a way to honor the animals.   Joseph   and  Cameron :  Maybe the paintings were religious, and the animals were their gods.

Today we talked about the earliest humans: the  hunter-gatherers  who originated in Africa and slowly migrated to the other continents. The students imagined what life was like for a person living 20,000 years ago. They concluded that hunter-gatherers' lives were  dangerous  and probably  repetitive   (perhaps boring, but also perhaps adventurous). Several students correctly determined that most early humans died at a young age. Here are some great descriptions of Stone Age life: Alexa :  I believe that life for prehistoric humans was much harder, since everyone's family had to provide for themselves. Although, I also think prehistoric humans were much more connected with each other since they didn't have any electronics to communicate with. Davis :  Their lives must have been very hard and challenging, and they had to watch out for animals! Catalina :  They all worked together and shared everything. Everyone collaborated. Despite the challen...

Today we learned that history is the study of the past ... and the students immediately began to question whether it might be more valuable to study the future , rather than the past! Why , the students asked, should we spend an entire year learning about things that have already happened, rather than preparing for things that might happen in the future?! Andrew ,  Dylan , and a couple of other students responded with a fantastic point: learning about the past can actually enable us to prepare better for the future! They said that we can study our past mistakes in order to avoid making them again in the future. WOW! This is a really insightful comment. A couple of other highlights from today's classes: During a discussion about names and how they can be traced back to particular historical meanings, Joey taught us that his last name comes from a word meaning "quail farmers"!  Meanwhile, Annabelle posed a fantastic question that is worthy of further investigation: wha...

We had a great first day of History class. We focused on the importance of asking questions. We talked about the way that asking questions helps people grow as readers, writers, and thinkers. Asking questions nurtures a person’s curiosity and creativity . In fact, asking a clever or inspiring question can be more important than answering the question! This is particularly true since many of the questions we will ask and discuss this year do not have a single “right” answer. The students responded to our discussion by asking some terrific initial questions about Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting,  Lady with an Ermine . Here are a few examples: Zara, Jack V.  and  Dearing : Who is this woman? Does she have a connection to Leonardo da Vinci? What was so special about this woman that Leonardo wanted to show her to the whole world? Olivia, James, Elsa, Cole, Matteo  and  Jack D. : Why is the woman holding an animal? Does the animal symbolize something? What kind ...

WELCOME TO 6TH GRADE HISTORY! I am very excited for the first day of school.  I think we are going to have an excellent year. This blog is called  Leonardo's Notebook .  It will serve as one tool in our discussion of history. I love photographs, artwork, and maps, and I think the blog will be an especially helpful place to highlight those items. I will also post course material on the blog, including the Wednesday evening history videos. Most importantly, the blog will feature  your  questions and  your  ideas. In the same way that Leonardo da Vinci wrote down his thoughts and questions so that he could reflect on them later, we will use the blog as a way of thinking more deeply about your questions. The sun is rising on a new year!