My Newscast Project

Da due o tre settimane sto facendo qualcosa per la scuola......Oooops wrong language. The past couple of weeks, I have had a social studies project to work on with a group. The project was a newscast from the past. We got to chose what we could do it on. At first we were going to do it on Japan, but then I thought about what I know about and what I can do. I then thought about doing the Renaissance, because that is when Leonardo da Vinci lived. I really like him and his inventions. I remembered that he was Italian and that I speak Italian. So, in the newscast, I start out talking in Italian. Great idea, right. So we got the script together and who each of the characters were going to be. I was, of course, Leonardo Da Vinci. We filmed at my house. When we were done, my Gramma had to figure out how we were supposed to edit the movie we shot. After a long long time of trying to figure it out, she finally got all of the clips that we wanted together. It looked good and she did a real nice job, thank you Gramma. There were a couple things that we needed to add and change, though. When she figured out how to edit it, she showed me how to do it too. The next day, my group came over, yesterday, and we finished it.Well, most of it anyway. We were going to put it on a DVD, but we did something so it would not go on. So after they left, I had to redo all the things that we did and more. When I finished it looked like this.





I hope you think it was good. We worked really hard on it.
See you later

My Da Vinci Experience

Hi everyone, on March 26th my school class went to the Air and Space Museum to see a da Vinci exhibit. We saw a lot of cool inventions and paintings. We took a lot of pictures and I put them into a slide show. Here it is.




This exhibit was special to me because I actually got to go to the place were Leonardo was born. He was from Vinci in Italy not to far from where I lived. da Vinci means from Vinci. So Leonardo da Vinci means Leonardo of Vinci. And one day I want to be as smart as him.


Bye everyone

The Orthodontist and the Madonna

Yesterday when I went in to Florence to go to the orthodontist, I also went to the Uffizi which has the Ognissanti Madonna. Signore Giotto painted it. I wanted to see it because I have a little model of it which you have seen on my blog--here.

I saw also the Tondo by Michaelangelo. It's a circle painting with a picture of Mary, Baby Jesus and Joseph. They don't have very much paintings by Michaelangelo. They are very old and so most of them have been lost.

I saw the La Nascita di Venere and also La Primavera. Those two were painted by Botticelli. I saw several annunciations. One was painted by Leonardo da Vinci--da Vinci means from Vinci and I have been there. An annunciation is when the angel is telling Mary that she is going to have baby Jesus.

We saw hundreds of others and I don't know who they were. I like going to the Uffizi. Lippi knew how to draw very pretty Mary's.

At the end I bought a puzzle block with a lot of the pictures of things. All the ones I talked about already. I also got one little drawing book and a regular size one. One has a picture of David on it and the other is Leonardo di Vinci. I am learning to draw. I also got a book about the Ognissanti Madonna.

Papa also got me a Fiorentina hat. My birthday is tomorrow so these were all birthday presents but I'm allowed to use them now.

Here's a picture of me with my Fiorentina shirt and Fiorentina hat.

Dr. Floria, my orthodontist in Florence, is really nice and here's a picture of him. I'm not going to see him anymore because this was my last time to the orthodontist here. My orthodontist back at home is Dr. Hirsch.

This is Dottore Floria.

I'm going to miss Florence. This is at a little fruit and vegetable store in an alley there.



PS: Today we went to Buonconvento and papa and gramma bought me a nice watch for my birthday.
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My Good Friends at La Cantinetti di Rignana

Last night I went to La Cantinetti di Rignana once again. This time was the best of all of them. I know everybody. Last night was a very special night. I went into the kitchen because one of the ladies called me in and they had a present all wrapped up for me.

I brought it back to the table and I started to open it. The wrapping said "Al Carissimo Amico, Casey" and everybody signed their name on it. The wrapping was made out of place mats and tied with a piece of string. At first it seemed heavy.




When I saw what the present was I was so excited because it was so special. It was a painting of Mary and Baby Jesus called The Ognissanti Madonna painted by Giotto about 700 years ago. For me a lot of these things are interesting because I've been to a lot of museums with that kind of stuff in them. Here's a picture of the painting.

This is Paolo Abbarchini the chef at La Rignana. And he is also the owner. He is always glad to see me. I like him.


This is Fabrizio. When I come in, he is so excited. And he says "Everybody, Casey's here.: And everybody runs out and gives me hugs. He's the one that whistles his stomach out and made the joke on my gramma with the coffee cup and yesterday did it to Ann. He is fun, too.


This is Fabrizo again and Stefano. He is really nice to me. Here I am signing the book. I said "This is my favorite restaurant. Thank you for the painting. I really like it." But I really wrote it in Italian.


Ann and Paul our friends from Hawaii went with us. This is us at the table when we were all through eating.

My Time at Paris

After school last Tuesday we flew to Paris for Easter vacation. We got there about eleven o'clock at night and got to bed about midnight. The hotel was very pretty. We had two rooms, actually. One for me and one for my grandparents. The two rooms were connected. I got to have my own room and bathroom and TV for 5 whole days.

I really liked Paris. Across from the hotel were the Jardin des Tuileries. It was the garden for the kings and queens. I liked the gardens because there was a little playground for kids.



When I went to the Eiffel Tower, guess who was scared of heights (?), so we didn't go up.

And guess what--they don't have any gelato--but they have Ben and Jerry's ice cream.


I was very disappointed about the Mona Lisa. I thought the Mona Lisa would really follow you with her eyes but she didn't. She just stayed with her eyes crooked like this.

by KZdaVinci

One of the things I was really wanting to do, because he's my favorite artist, was go to the Picasso Museum. Picasso is my favorite artist because he makes such pretty and unusual paintings. When I first saw Picasso paintings I was in Barcelona, Spain.

The paintings here were also very unusual. He doesn't just have paintings. He has collages, too and sculptures. He seemed to really like to paint ladies in red arms chairs. Here's a picture of a lady in a red arm chair.


I'm trying to draw Picasso pictures. So far, I'm pretty good.

By KZPicasso

Another artist I saw in one of the museums was VanGogh. He was a very weird guy because he cut his ear off and gave it to his girlfriend. I don't like Van Gogh as much as Picasso. His paintings I saw had little waves of paint that you can look at but you're not allowed to touch it. If you could touch it, you could feel the little waves.

This is Van Gogh.

In Paris I saw where the guillotine was. The guillotine cuts peoples' heads off. The king and queen got their heads cut off because they were rich and all the other people were regular and poor so they killed them.

I took all the pictures in this blog. I hope you liked them.