Last week, grade 1 students visited the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University for an up-close look at works from various periods. Auguste Rodin’s famous sculpture “The Thinker” was a favorite of the students, who tried to imitate the sculpture’s pose and “discovered how awkward the pose actually is!” reported teacher Cindy Proctor.

Elsewhere, students engaged in an activity in which they studied two paintings to gather information on each of them. “One of the paintings was of the Stanford family,” Proctor said. “The children looked closely and were able to tell the docent quite a bit about the family based on the painting.” After examining another painting, the students constructed a story about a daring river rescue.

Other highlights included spotting geometric patterns in a mural and perusing the museum’s renowned collection of Rodin sculptures, one of the largest in the world.