Top Ten!

Give students the opportunity to create a top ten list for next year’s students. Let each student choose from the following:

• The top ten things about Grade _________! (insert grade level)
• The top ten things about ____________’s class! (insert your name)
• The top ten things about this school!

Once students have chosen their topic, encourage them to brainstorm as many things as they can. Of those, they can circle or star the best ten. Once they have narrowed their list down to ten, ask students to rank the ideas with number 1 being the absolute best thing about their chosen topic.

When they write the actual list–which will be left for incoming students–they should start at number 10, progressing to number 1.

Encourage creativity by providing options:

• invite students to work in partners if they choose,
• perhaps the list is made into a ten-page book with one idea per page,
• maybe they embed their top ten list into a poem,
• they might prefer to create slides, one idea per slide, or
• perhaps they choose to record a video of their top ten list.

The options are endless!