I think that all of these inventions are cool but they are a little space wasting and there is a constant need of stuff that is not a daily house thing

Fun activities! We loved the marshmallow geometric shape activity. Too bad the marshmallows I got were all melted together. It made for a sticky mess.

Good book that covers a lot of Leonardo's inventions and fun projects one can do while reading about them. I found the water shoes interesting.

I found this book as I was searching for projects students could make during a school STEM night. I loved the connection between teaching them about both STEM and an amazing artist/inventor from history together. What I appreciate about the book is that is can be used on many different levels. You are able to learn much more about da Vinci and his life and ideas as well as have fun. I could easily see a student getting this book and just looking at the pictures and projects and trying some of them out without really reading much of the text. I could also see the flip side of a student using this book to add wonderful details to their biography and using the ideas as drawings and text features rather than actually building any of them. I enjoyed a little of both and when we are able to go back to school and I am able to create the wonderful STEM night that my students were so excited about, I will use this book again.

من زمن الاقطاع الى زمن النهضه.
كان الاقطاعيون يملكون اراضى و اموال كثيره. و كان الفلاحين يعملون لديهم لعيشون و منهم من يعمل فى المصانع و الاعمال السياحيه للبلد. اجيال ورا اجيال يولدون و يعيشون ثم يتوفون. الحياه كانت سهله و مستقره و كانت منعزله. كل فرد يعمل فى جزيره لوحده.
و تمر السنوات الى ان تم حدوث حروب بين هؤلاء الاقطاعيين و التأمر على بعضهم البعض. سكان الارياف بدءوا فى الانتقال الى المدينه لتحسين ظروفهم المعيشيه بعد تركهم للاراضى التى ظلوا بها لاجيال. فالمدينه الان تمنح لهم تعلم افكار جديده و و طرق للتجاره. لاكن المدن اكتظت بالسكان و الماكن الغير نظيفه و صالحه للعيش و هى ظروف مثاليه لانتشار الاويئه. فانتشرت الامراض و من بينها مرض الطاعون.

The information in this book was great and very informative. However, some of the projects were really involved and required quite a bit of materials/time to make. It would be helpful if templates were included with the book, or if there was a website they could be printed from. We did make a few things, and we ended up getting a kit from Amazon (a da Vinci kit made by National Geographic) which worked a lot better.

This book has very interesting information about Leonardo's life. But, the directions on the projects aren't detailed enough, and they rarely worked for us. It is still interesting to read about the projects even if you don't do them.

I got the book for my son, but I couldn't tear myself away from it over breakfast this morning.

I found the bit about him playing practical jokes on his friends to be most amusing, but I most admit I'm glad they didn't give directions on how to use bellows to fill a room with a sheep intestine. Not that my son would touch a sheep's intestine, but still, yuck.

I have already decided that if I get to take certain items with me to a deserted island, a chicken will have to be one of them. I need to make paint, you see...

I loved all these activities, but we just didn't really get to them. There's too much to do!

We used this to pick out some hands-on projects to do along with our homeschool study of Leonardo da Vinci. It's got some good options, along with a chapter about each one.

Excellent book about da Vinci and his inventions. The build it yourself projects are fairly complex (more so than the Ben Franklin book in the series), so this book would best fit middle schoolers on up. Younger children would need a lot of help from an adult.

I got this as a birthday gift back in grade school...This is the book with the correct answers about da Vinci, not Dan Brown's awful bestseller. Even Walter Isaacson agrees with me with his biographical bestseller. da Vinci has been one of the world's greatest and most important historical figures: he's not just an artist, he's also a scientist and an inventor. Like, for example, he made what is considered the world's first working tank, albeit without the cannons. He also built the basis for the modern machine gun, he even invented a set of wings for flying. All these inventions are outlined in this book. I've actually attempted to assemble them myself, and with satisfactory success. This book is well worth checking out if you think you're so special as a young or old inventor...