Year 6 - The Vitruvian Man

Year 6 have been exploring the work of Leonardo Da Vinci, not just in terms of art and architecture but also his work in anatomy and the human body. They have explained how the Vitruvian Man relates to geometry. His work as a scientist, a sculptor, a mathematician and an inventor has been of huge interest over the last 400 years. Despite the fact that Da Vinci had a great mind and was considered to be a genius, he never actually went to school!

The architect Vitruvius had several theories, which is what Da Vinci tried to show in his drawing of the Vitruvian Man. For example, one of his theories was:

'Our arm span is equal to our height'.

The children have been busy measuring and representing the information on a scatter graphs, both in maths and in ICT. They have considered how height may have changed with medical advances and diet over the centuries. Here are some other theories that they have tested:

‘The length of the hand is one tenth of the height'.

‘The length of the foot is 1/7 of the height'.

‘The belly button is at the centre of the body’.

The children have enjoyed looking at true body proportions and involved adults, babies and even pets in their explorations!