Welcome Back ... Day Two!

More students today enjoying our soft seating

And I learned how to make a table in Blogger! Life is good in The Bog

Welcome Back Bridgeview!

It's another exciting year in the library at Bridgeview. First and foremost, everyone is trying out the new soft seating! Everyone seems to be very pleased with our choices (including me!) Thanks, PTA, for all you did to make this happen! It's going to be a great year!

The Tale of a Transforming Library

It started in December of 2015 and continued through the spring of 2016 ... the exciting transformation of the Bridgeview Library.

One week before the "packing party", students in grades 3 - 6 were allowed to take as many books for the winter break as they wanted. Students were leaving the library with grocery bags full. These were "just in case" check outs ... just in case we don't have our books unpacked when we come back from winter break in January.


Then, on Monday December 21st, Edgar's Elves packed over 12,000 books in just over 3 hours. Book shelves stood empty awaiting their relocation to the temporary library. Books were encased in cardboard boxes. Cicero's quote took on a chilling reality: A room without books is like a body without a soul.  

So why have an author visit?

Click here to see what our students have to say about our Author Visit

Go Big or Go Home when it comes to revising

Preparations continue for Mary Amato Author Visit

With less than a week to go, things are in full swing for the author visit. Mrs. Gray is teaching all the students Our Pants Go Marching, one of songs sung in The Riot Brothers series.

The SAC (Student Author Committee) has been recruiting 1st and 2nd graders to join them in the Stinky Style dance (from Good Crooks book #3: Sniff a Skunk). Rehearsals begin soon.

Then we'll have a little dinner theater or, more accurately, Cafeteria Theater as the 6th graders perform three different Reader's Theater scripts of Ms. Amato's books on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday during lunch. We'll be filming, so check back later to see how they did.

In 6th grade, Invisible Lines by Mary Amato is being read aloud. In the book, Trevor does graffiti-style artwork.  Students are being encouraged to create their own artwork to show off during the author visit next week. As you can see from pictures below, things are looking good in 6th grade, too!

Make sure you check back again for further developments!

Mary Amato Coming to Bridgeview!

Author Mary Amato will be at Bridgeview on Thursday, November 12th. Her books include:

• The Riot Brothers (series)
• Good Crooks (series)
• Invisible Lines
• The Word Eater
• Nake Mole Rat Letters
• Please Write in this book
• Edgar Allen's Crime Scene Investigation Notebook

You can read more about Mary at

Mary's Website

The 6th grade author committee is diligently planning for the visit. They are working on a dance to teach the younger students to go along with the book Sniff a Skunk (Good 

Crooks #3)

Posters are going up around the school and the Reader's Theater Group is preparing to perform for classes.

It's going to be an exciting few weeks as we continue to get ready for the visit. Stay tuned for more information soon.

BV & Beyond Spring Book Club

We just finished our Bridgeview & Beyond spring book club. The book we chose to read was When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. It is a great book to read and discuss because there are so many mysteries occurring throughout. As we were reading the book, we were looking for evidence to help us answer some of the questions we had. We kept track on the posters and updated them every week. As we got closer to the end, we made our predictions and waited anxiously to see if we had solved the mysteries. We even got to ask Rebecca Stead some questions via email.

Here's what our readers said at the last meeting when I asked what they thought of the book:

• I loved the book. It was my favorite book I have read. I was so surprised at the end. Katelyn
• I loved this book because it's one of those books that you have to think about at the end. Chloe
• I loved the book. I also loved the mystery of the whole thing.  I was so surprised about Quackers and Julie. Kaelyn
• I loved the book because I loved all the surprises at the end. Allyson
• Awesome Book :-D - Eoin
• I liked the book. Kerri

Research Mentors, Day 2

Day 2: Students finished finding information on their polar animals. The next step will be to take this information and create a book about their animals.

Research Mentors

We had some polar animal research going on today in the library. A group of curious kindergartners wanted to find out more about penguins, polar bears and other polar animals.

I had talked to the 6th graders before hand and asked if they would like to serve as mentors for our young researchers. We talked about how to engage the students in questioning rather than just telling them what to write down in their notes. 

It was really fun to watch the 6th graders, our most experienced researchers, help the students find information for their graphic organizers. There were a lot of quality conversations. And I'm not sure who was having more fun: the kindergartners or the 6th graders.

We look forward to another day of research tomorrow and another chance for the sixth graders to mentor our young inquiry-minded kindergartners.