VAST Activities: Trip to Vassar

The last day of VAST for the semester was Friday, December 6. To celebrate all of our accomplishments so far, VAST went on a field trip to Vassar College.

The VAST students are always excited to go on a trip to Vassar and see something new. For this field trip, we saw two different parts of the college.

First, we went to the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, the art museum at Vassar. We were lucky to have three student docents help out with art at VAST all semester: Sophie, Olivia, and Angela. (To see more about their Art Talk activity on Fridays, click here). Sophie, Olivia, and Angela took the scholars on a tour of the museum to check out famous works of art. Then the students had the opportunity to sketch drawings inspired by what they saw in the museum. Some of the students had never been to an art museum before, so it was a chance for them to see art up close and personal for the first time. The museum houses art pieces from Picasso to the Hudson River School to modern art. Thank you Olivia, Sophie, and Angela for opening the museum doors to VAST.

This is what the outside of the Vassar art museum looks like

Second, the VAST scholars visited the Vassar College Library. We reserved a computer lab so they could each work on a computer and type up a writing piece. The scholars chose what they wanted to write about, whether it was a fictional story, a poem, a persuasive essay, or a journal entry about themselves. The writing pieces are featured here on the VAST blog. Rachel led a mini-lesson to teach the scholars that a blog is a way for anyone to share news. You don’t have to be a famous journalist to write for an audience; instead you can write on a blog and choose which news stories are important to you. It is an empowering way to share information. To learn more about how to use blogs, click here.

The scholars saw the inside of the Vassar library- it’s absolutely beautiful

Here’s to more field trips and new experiences when the program starts again in February!