A goal that all teachers have is to ensure their students are truly learning the material. It is not about memorization or taking a test before moving on. Instead, it is about truly making progress toward grasping skills. One skill that students need for life involves writing. However, writing can be stressful! Therefore, writing centers are a great way to allow students time to practice without feeling judged. One excellent topic to use is Top Ten Lists since students are guided yet supported!
Benefits of Writing Centers
There are so many benefits to having a writing center in your classroom. First, it can be really stressful to ensure kids are working when you are with another group. For example, if you are with a guided reading group, your attention truly needs to be on them. However, it is still important that all students behave and learn. Second, writing is such an important, challenging skill to learn. It takes a lot of time to learn how to put sentences together. Therefore, having a writing center allows students to practice throughout the week.
This resource achieves both of the above goals! First, students can complete it independently. Hence, your attention can be on other students. Second, students can work on it daily. Therefore, you do not have to spend time planning a new center each day. Everything is ready to go for you! There are even multiple options for the list that provide differentiated activities. For example, there are several different lists for students to make, such as places to go on vacation or types of animals.
In order to help generate some thoughts, there are also picture lists included. If students need more support or love creativity, there are also two more options! First, students have a sheet where they can draw a picture and then write a word. Second, there is an option where students are given 10 pictures. Then, they write the word for the picture. To finish, they name the category based on the similarity between the pictures.
Extension Activities
There are always students who finish quickly. Therefore, many extensions are built into this resource. For example, students can write their lists in sentences. Therefore, they are progressing from one-word or multi-word responses into short sentences. This is a great way to practice correct punctuation and capitalization! Then, there is a checklist of additional options.
Specifically, students can circle vowels, put the words into ABC order, and draw and color responses. For the ABC order, there is even a list that shows the order for guidance. Furthermore, peer editing can be done. Students often learn so well when working with other students! Hence, students can peer-edit each other’s sentences. Ultimately, this is a great way to build collaboration and relationships.
Writing can be very stressful and frustrating for students. However, the Top Ten Lists help ensure students are having fun and are supported while learning this challenging task! It is the perfect addition to add to your writing centers.
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