Archive for Activities

VAST Activities: Art with Spencer

Every Friday, Spencer does an art activity with scholars. The two most popular activities are painting and crayon art. Scholars can work with their mentors to create paintings, drawings, or other works of art to take home.

VAST Activities: Trivia

When I was doing trivia I had a lot of fun! We had 5 categories, fun facts, science sense, tallest fastest greatest, world geography,  and american holidays. When we went around one time it was easy but if you didn’t get it and someone answered you couldn’t get the points, and I got very frustrated  […]

VAST Activities: Matthew’s Minstrels and Merely Players

On Friday, November 7th, VAST hosted special guests from Vassar. Acappella group Matthew’s Minstrels and drama group Merely Players worked with and performed for VAST Scholars. The Merely Players ran workshops with small groups of scholars, which included warm-up exercises, improvisation, and a healthy dose of Shakespearian insults. Matthew’s Minstrels blew us away with their […]

VAST Activities: Halloween

On Friday, October 31st, VAST Scholars had the opportunity to participate in several festive activities. Some scholars participated in drama and chess, and others carved pumpkins outside with their mentors. VAST also hosted special guests from Vassar UNICEF. The UNICEF members talked with scholars about UNICEF’s work with children, and passed out Trick or Treat […]

VAST Activities: Vassar Women’s Soccer

On October 17th, VAST scholars and their parents were invited to attend a Vassar College Women’s Soccer game. VAST scholars were included in the pre-game huddle with the team, and ran the sidelines during the game as ball girls! VAST thanks the Vassar Women’s Soccer and Basketball teams for this awesome invitation! We had a great […]

VAST Activities: Chess

Hello Everybody! I’m Seung Baang and I’m from a neighborhood in Denver, Colorado called Montbello. Anyways, when I was growing up, I was bored sometimes in school. I went to the Montbello library and checked out a chess book because I had seen chess played before but never learned how to play. I taught myself […]

VAST Activities: Squash and Volleyball

On 10/10/14, the VAST Scholars came to Kenyon Hall at Vassar College to play volleyball and squash. The scholars were split into two groups, with girls playing squash and boys playing volleyball. Thanks to the Vassar coaches and players of the squash and volleyball teams for teaching and playing with our scholars!

VAST Activities: Spring Semester 2014

Every Friday at VAST, the scholars rotate to a new activity led by Vassar student mentors. Many of our activities continued from where we left off in the Fall semester, such as Debate, Art, Cooking, and Science. We have one new activity this semester: Improv! One of our mentors teaches fun acting and improvisation games […]

VAST Activities: Olympics

Friday, February 7 was the first day of VAST’s spring semester. We were scheduled to start on Monday, February 3, but snow storms in Poughkeepsie delayed us. To celebrate the first day, which was the same day as the Opening Ceremony for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, VAST held our own version of the Olympic […]

VAST Activities: Electric Teamwork

Watch the video below to see two of our scholars, Chanda and Victoria, working together to build a snap circuit. Chanda reads the directions aloud to Victoria so they can map the circuit together and figure out how electricity works. Electric Teamwork Video

VAST Activities: Debate

In the video featured below, watch one of our mentors, Nathan, demonstrate public speaking skills to students in the Debate Activity. In addition to running Debate, Nathan is a Head Mentor for the 6th graders in Room 115, the Awesome Rockets. Debate Video

VAST Activities: Art Talk

Every Friday, VAST welcomes special guest mentors to teach an Art Talk activity. Three Vassar students who are docents in the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center came to VAST to run the activity: Sophie, Olivia, and Angela. The scholars looked at historical paintings and made their own unique works of art based on the styles […]

Poughkeepsie Middle School and Vassar College working together!