The annual Brookside music and arts fesitval is a feast for the senses. Hours and hours of learning, practicing and creating culminate in a school-wide art display and musical performances. Visitors browsed hundreds of student art projects in every grade level Pre-K through 5. The cafeteria stage came alive with performances by the Advanced Orchestra, Advanced Band and Chorus. The chorus selections celebrated the classic Disney film Mary Poppins. This year, there was an added bonus: the written word. A K-5 school-wide writing celebration produced hundreds of submissions, which were prominently displayed. Teacher Kara Giblin explained that students explored the theme of "what good writers do" in creating poems (haiku, free verse, diamante, or shape poems), personal writings about future careers or favorite things to do, persuasive arguments, writing from illustrations in wordless picture books, or informative writings about such things as constellations or natural disasters. "We had a large variety of genres and it was all hung in the cafeteria," said Mrs. Giblin. "We wanted to tie it into our Art and Music Festival to celebrate and be proud of the work we've done this school year."