Owl Theme Now Available!

My new Sight Word Game Boards are now available in your favorite OWL theme!


Get it here!

More Vowel, More Owls!

The owls are back! And this time they're hiding long and short vowels around the room! It's the same idea of Write Around the Room that your kids will become familiar with . . . find the owls and use the recording sheet to apply what they've learned!

In this new version students will record the words found with the owls, deciding whether the word contains a long or short vowel. Take it a step further and have the students highlight the determining vowels in each word on their recording sheet.

ABC Order Center

You know how our little 1st graders have lots of energy?  Sometimes they just can't help it.  They find themselves walking around the room (or find reasons to get up and walk around the room).  So why not let them?

This Literacy Center allows them to roam around the room in search of hidden owls.  In this ABC Order center you will hide 10 owls around the room (posting them on walls, bulletins, furniture, etc.).  Each owl has a word on it.  Once the student finds all 10 owls, recording them on their papers the students will put the words in ABC order!

I have included 5 different sets of words that can be used one at a time, increasing the difficulty the next time the center is used (alphabetizing to the 2nd and 3rd letter).  The 5 sets can also be used as a differentiated center, posting different sets of owls (color coded by group) as a differentiated center.  In this version you'd only assign one colored set to students of one level while assigning a different harder/easier set to another set of students of a different level!

Click on the preview below to snag this center on my TpT!

Busy, Busy! FYI!

I've been busy, busy this week working on something exciting for 1st grade teachers that will last you the whole year through.  Trust me . . . it's very useful!  Stay tuned to find out what it is!

Also, if you were interested in my 42 page owl themed time unit but haven't purchased it yet from TpT . . . I've dropped the price so you may want to go check it out again!

Off to work on the that exciting new item!  I'll be back soon!

Updated File Folder Game!

Remember this annoying Time Unit I keep talking about?  Well, the first product I posted was my "Hoo's" Turn Is It?file folder game.  I've finally gone back and differentiated it as I had always planned.  See, that's one of the reasons my units are taking so long.  I'd like to differentiate my products to meet the needs of your low, average, and high learners.  (I know there's a nicer, more p.c. way of saying that.  How would you name the differentiation so as to not offend anyone?)  You can always differentiate a product on your own, but I'd like to have them differentiated for you already so all you have to do is as the name says: Plug-n-Plan!

Anyways, the new differentiated  file is up on my TpT account.  If you've already purchased it, go back and download the new file.  It's got a lot more to it now!

I hope you enjoy!

So what's this all about?

 Welcome to Plug-n-Plan!

Seeing as how this is a brand new blog, I thought it might be a good idea to explain why I started yet another teacher blog . . .

My name is Melissa and I've been teaching 1st grade for 9 years now in Gwinnett County, GA.  For years I put in endless hours in the classroom, coffee shops, and home working on lesson plans, grading papers, creating centers, drawing up worksheets, etc.  You know the drill.  Then 7 years into teaching I got married, and I kept up this same routine only this time I'd bring stuff home to work on while my husband studied or worked on stuff for church.  Now in my 9th year we've added a beautiful baby girl to the equation!

Life has definitely changed.

I'm still doing all I can, the best I can but I try to make it a point NOT to take stuff home unless there's a really big deadline.  (I've got to put my family before my professional life.  Priorities, right?)  So that means that I'm squeezing in as much as I can into every "spare" second of the day.  Not everything gets done, and a lot of things don't turn out as well as I would like.  It can be pretty exhausting.  You can relate, can't you?

Ready for a confession?  I haven't been fully satisfied with what I do at school.  I know that I can do better if I had more time.  I know this because I know what I used to do. Factor in a teacher's tendency towards control and perfectionism and you can imagine my frustration.

I know I'm not the only one out there who wishes they could make the creative centers they imagine in their heads, plan effective lessons, gather/develop practice sheets and assessments, AND still have a life outside the classroom.  This is why I've started the blog.  It's my goal to put together packages for specific skills that include all these things so that all you have to do is just "plug" the pieces into your own lesson plans and save yourself some time!

So in the spirit of saving time . . . let's start with a file folder game on TIME!

(Complete unit to follow shortly . . . check back soon!)