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Our Valentine's Day Party

We had a blast during our Valentine's Day party! We hunted for cupid's arrows, guessed how much candy we thought was in a jar, made animals and flowers out of hearts, made hearts out of candy canes and ate big, pink heart cookies. Thanks to all the parents that helped organize our party!!
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Presentation Help

I teach in a Preschool through 4th grade building. I am working on a technology presentation for our inservice day this Friday. Part of the presentation is sharing all of your amazing blogs with my colleagues. Please click on this link to
MY DISTRICT WEBSITE and look for your blog in the different grade level categories.

Send me a link to your blog if you can't find yourself or let me know if I have you in the wrong category. I would really love to fine some more 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade blogs, so please let me know if any of your colleagues have blogs that I can add.

A big thank you to all my blogging friends for helping me with this project!!!

How to Build a Snowman


Kindergarten writers are amazing! We recently wrote how-to stories about how to build a snowman and used construction paper crayons to create our covers. I love how these turned out and was so impressed by my little writers and illustrators. I wish I had the time and patience to upload everyone's stories, but here are 3 for you to enjoy.
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Snowmen at Night

We read 
 painted pictures and wrote about what our snowmen would do at night.
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I've gone bloggin' crazy

OK, I need to clean my house, do some laundry, take care of my children...but all I think about doing is reading blogs. My name is Jonelle Bell and I am a bloggoholic! I love so many of your blogs and feel like we are all connected by our enthusiasm and passion for what we do. Last year when there weren't as many of us, April Larremore from Chalk Talk and I started emailing and giving shout outs to each other on our blogs. Well today, because of a Skyping project we are working on (more on this later) I not only got to speak to April, but I also got to see her. This was so exciting and will make it a little less freaky for April when I show up on her doorstep one day:)

I have organized all of my favorite
February bloggin' favs on

Find out more about Sqworl bookmarking HERE.

Solid Shapes Guessing Bags

We have been practicing identifying solid shapes. To end this unit we identified these shapes, recorded them on the Smartboard to use as a reference, reached our hands into numbered bags and recorded what shape we were feeling. This was the quietest activity and everyone was on the edge of their seats waiting for each bag to come around to them. After the big reveal William said, "That was the best math lesson you have ever taught!" Thanks William...it only took me 103 days:)




solid shapes guessing bags

The Story of Snow

I love the nonfiction book, The Story of Snow. The leveled text makes it easy to read as much or as little about snow that you want to. We read the bold simple text and used the more involved text, in smaller print, to answer questions that came up. After we read the book we recorded some information about snow in our science notebooks, drew snowflakes with oil pastels and painted over them with watercolors. The idea for the paintings came from one of my favorite blogs,









Meet the Teacher

Cara Carroll at First Grade Parade is having a linky party! Click the link below to meet all the guest at Cara's party.
I am Jonelle Bell, a 40 something mother and kindergarten teacher in Ohio.
I married my husband 16 years ago, even though our union resulted in my first and last name rhyming for the rest of my life.
We have 3 sons, Jack (15), Brian (11) and Casey (7). I refer to our home as the frat house...even our 95 pound airedale terrier is a boy. I could start another blog about all the gross stuff and strange sounds that go on in our home, but all that needs to be kept under wraps.
I went to Ohio University and pray that one of my boys will become a Bobcat so that I can hang out at the Junction again and jam with the band at football games.
{the 80s ladies back in our house at OU celebrating 40}
I am currently teaching all day kindergarten.
{my kindergarten school pic}
I have been teaching for 21 years...20 in the same school district. The same school district where I live, which means that my boys can't get away with anything without me finding out seconds after it happens. I love my job and I teach with some of the most amazing women.

{Q & A}
Q: What would you be doing if you weren’t a teacher?
A: Inspired by the movie..."The Wedding Planner."

Q: What are your hobbies?
A: technology, photography, stamping/card making (or collector of supplies to make cards), reading, blogging, blog stalking and #1 sports fan for my boys

Q: When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A: I wanted to be a teacher. I made all the neighborhood kids play school with me. My mom, grandfather and grandmother were teachers...my grandmother taught in a one room schoolhouse in West Virginia.

Q: What are your guilty pleasures?
A: Diet Coke, pretzel M&Ms, Danskos, The Real Housewives, red wine and blogging

Q: What is your biggest fear?!
A: I am terrified that something will happen to me and I won't be able to be there for my boys. My father died when I was very young and I still miss him and think of him often.
{one of the last pictures taken of my father}

Q: When you’re on vacation, where do you like to go?
A: Anywhere with my boys...for the past several years we have made some great memories in
Sunset Beach, North Carolina.

Q: What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
A: My mentor when I started teaching who is now like a sister to me has given me so much great advice, but I often think about these two:
1. Always do what is best for the kids (your students).
2. When I had small children of my own she told me to remember that what is cute at 2 is obnoxious at 5:)
{love ya Barbie}

Q: What do you value most in others?
A: Being genuine and honest.

Q: If you could choose one of your personality traits to pass down to your kids, what would it be?
A: My sense of humor and ability to stay calm while my husband freaks out.

Q: If you could have lunch with anyone in the world….living or dead…who would it be?
A: I would love to have lunch with my dad.
I also think that Cara should plan a blogger luncheon/convention...
name the date, place and time and I am there.

Now tell us one random thing about yourself:
I was the field commander for the marching band and a cheerleader in high school. The same small farm town high school that Alex Karev/Justin Chambers and his twin attended...he was a freshman when I was a senior.

Hooray For the 100th Day!!

We had a great 100th day of school today.
We wrote about what we would buy with $100.
This idea came from Mrs. Gagne's Kindergarten and a coworker had the giant $100 from
I could eat 100...
We made "100" hats that we practiced
counting by 10s to 100 on.
We colored in numbers on a 100 chart
to reveal a surprise 100!
We made a 100th day snack out of a pretzel rod and mini bagel covered in
peanut butter and sprinkles.
We drew pictures of ourselves today and in 100 years. The inspiration for this activity came from Teach Kids Art.
We read lots of books about 100.
Check out our Smilebox full of 100th Day fun!!
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