Back to School Goals and Easy Anchor Chart Redo

Last summer I was cruising Pinterest {no surprise} and I came across this idea for gluing tacks on the back of clothespins to hold my anchor charts up. I'm sure many of you have seen this same thing. I went to Joann's, found some fabric, mod podged it on the clothespins, and hot glued the tacks to the clothespin. Score! Well, I used them last year in my classroom {I really wish I could find the picture!}.

They were so cute...until the day the tacks started to separate from clothespin. Great. What was left? Ugly brass tacks holding up my anchor charts.

I decided to handle that this year! This past week, I took all those clothespins, tacks, and E6000 glue. Yeah I brought out the big guns. I reglued those bad boys back to the clothespins. This time I also attached two tacks to the back of the clothespin too. I'm hoping for better success this time! Only time will tell...

I'm also linking up today with I {heart} Recess for the Monthly Goals Back to School edition.

Here's mine!

Personal: Leave work by 5:00, eat better, and workout
Okay. Our school gets out at 4:30. That leaves me 30 minutes to get my stuff together and be out. Now that I have Avery I just don't have the time I used to have to be able to spend at the school! I know this is going to be challenging but I'm going to have to make good use of my time and not spend so much time socializing. {That's} going to be hard! Eat better and workout...hmmm. Eat better isn't too bad. I kind of ignore that over the summer and do an okay job during the school year. Working out is going to be the tricky part. Ugh. Just thinking of it makes me cringe. I'm going to do it though! I have to do it! I wrote it down...

Organization: I have a tendency of not wanting to grade written work until I absolutely have to. I {hate} grading essays. Especially those the kids give me at the beginning of the year before I've had a chance to cast my spell over them and brainwash them. This year, {because I'm writing it down- this is starting to be a problem ;) }I'm going to have those essays graded AND put in the grade book within a week. Yup. I said it. One week.

Planning: Mr. Bush wasn't thrilled about the price of the Erin Condren planner but I'm going to use it! It's going to be used to organize my life and help plan out my lessons. I'm going to use it for good and not to just show how unbelievably cute it is.

Professional: This year I'm going to reach out to students' parents even more to keep them in the loop and continue the communication. I feel like I've made a good start with what I discussed in the last blog post about connecting with them through Twitter and Instagram. I still think I can continue that and more.

Students: Our school has a 25 book campaign where each student's goal at the end of the year is to have read 25 books. It is so hard to get 8th graders excited, motivated, and keep them on track. I feel like last year when I was out on maternity leave for two months I really wasn't able to guide them the way I normally would have to achieving their goal. As a result, I'm sad to say many of mine didn't reach it. It really breaks my heart too. This year, I'm going to spend more time conferencing with them about their goals and what they need to do to reach their goals

Motto: My motto for the year is going to be "Take it one day at a time!" I think that's perfect for me and my students alike.

One more thing. Have you started following Life With Middle Schoolers on Facebook yet? Check it out! Have a great week everyone!