We know that Leonardo da Vinci recorded his ideas, observations, and inventions on pages and pages of parchment that were later combined into notebooks, or codices. While half of Leonardo’s notebooks are known to have been lost, several still exist including Codex Madrid, Codex Arundel, and Codex Atlanticus. Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, owns another one, the Codex Leicester.

The Codex Ark: A Leonardo da Vinci notebook for children

Leonardo was one of the quintessential Renaissance men and one of history’s great creative geniuses. We were inspired to create a 21st century version of Leonardo’s Codices and we’ve called it Codex Ark. By adding their own individual Codex Ark pages, Ark Children together create a work of collective genius.

The Philosophy of Leaning of the Codex Ark

The philosophy of learning of the Codex Ark is to encourage children to use technology confidently in their everyday lives with a view towards improving their computer literacy and skills. We also aim to explore a broad range of subjects with a specific focus on the arts. The Codex Ark has been inspired by the notebooks (or codices) of Leonardo da Vinci and will continue to encourage children to explore the world around them in the same spirit of intellectual curiosity.

It’s your Codex – use it!

In addition to inventions, the Codex Ark can be used in many different settings and many different activities can easily be organised around it. It’s also excellent as an independent study activity.

• Students can type or scan in their stories, poems, news, observations of nature, riddles, factual writing etc.
  
• You can add digital photographs or scan printed photographs. Have the students describe why they took the photo and what they were thinking about when they took the photo.
  
• You can also scan in your student’s artwork. Have them describe the artwork and what inspired them to create it.
  
• Use the Codex Ark’s built-in drawing tool to draw directly onto a page in the Codex Ark. There is no need for a scanner or digital camera to add images.
  
• You can also use it to document scientific experiments and activities.
  
• And the Codex Ark can certainly be used for computer class/computer lab activities.

Add your school to the Codex Ark

You can make it easy to search for your classroom or school by adding yourself to the Codex's list of schools. For instance, you could add "Miss Jones' class”, “St Patrick's Primary School", or just "Rathlee National School".

When students make a new page in the Codex, they'll just need to pick their school from a list of choices.

Specific Curriculum Tie-ins for The Codex Ark

The Codex Ark also ties in nicely with specific aims of the new curriculum:

English Writing and Oral Expression

Curriculum Aim: Create, foster and maintain the child’s interest in expression and communication.
Curriculum Aim: Enable the child to read and write independently.

• Children can type or scan in their stories, poems, news reports, observations, riddles, factual writing etc. In this way, children can create an online portfolio of their best written work. Children can find their favourite (or least favourite) works on the Codex Ark and discuss why they like or dislike them, how they could improve on them, etc.

Visual Arts

Curriculum Aim: To enable the child to explore, clarify and express ideas through a range of art activities.
Curriculum Aim: : To provide for aesthetic experiences and to develop aesthetic awareness in the visual arts, in music, in drama, in dance and in literature.

• As noted above, children can scan in their artwork, (or photos of their artwork in the case of 3D art or classroom art projects), and include titles/descriptions of the work, where they got their inspiration, what materials they used, etc.
  Possible specific themes include perspective and self-portrait.

Science

Curriculum Aim: To reinforce and stimulate curiosity and imagination about local and wider environments.

• Children can scan in scientific designs, wacky scientific inventions, written reports or observations about nature and all things scientific. Also they can look at the inventions of other children and discuss whether or not they could work, whether they're just for fun, etc. Could they construct somebody's invention?

Tell us!

We would really like to help you use the Codex Ark. Tell us about your experiences with it.
Please contact codex@ark.ie with questions, comments, and suggestions.