1-2-3 Come Write With Me!
If your students are like mine, they'll enjoy sharing things about themselves and giving their opinion, so making a bio-writing prompt "craftivity" will be interesting and fun for them.
I've included a mortarboard (graduation cap) template, so if you teach kindergarten or preschool and your kiddo's have a graduation ceremony, this makes a wonderful keepsake.
You can give students a variety of color choices or run the template off on just your school colors.
If you don't need the mortarboard, simply give students skin-tone colored construction paper and have them draw a large self portrait of just their head and neck.
Showing them a sample you made, will help them follow the directions of drawing just their head and making sure that they use the entire paper.
My Y5's had a tendency to draw stick figures or too small of a circle for their face. Children color and cut their portrait out and glue the bio writing prompt template at the bottom.
To make this "craftivity" even more of a keepsake, as well as add some 3D pizzazz, students pick a partner and trace their hand on a folded sheet of skin-tone colored construction paper.
This way they can cut once, and have 2 hands. You may want this step done by a room helper to expedite things for preschoolers.
Show them your sample and explain that they glue the base of each hand to either side of their bio page, and then gently fold their fingers forward, gluing the tip of one finger to the front.
Completed projects make an adorable end-of-the-year bulletin board. For that extra finishing touch, use wiggle eyes and fasten them with glue dots.
Adding a tassel to the center of the graduation cap also adds pow. I made mine out of yarn, but you can also buy "real" tassels from a party store. Some even have a little year charm on them. 
If you have time, have students share their work with their classmates.
If you've already got enough end of the year activities, these bios are wonderful for a "getting to know you" icebreaker for the beginning of the school year as well.
To expedite things, include the writing portion in your "welcome to school" letter or open house packet. Parents can then help little ones fill in the information; children bring this to school the first day, where they'll make the head and hands and attach the bio paper.
For teachers who want to skip the "craftivity" portion, I've also included a bio-writing prompt sheet that has a small space for students to simply draw a mini self-portrait.
Another idea is to have students fill this out at the beginning of the year, and then do it again the last week of school to see how things have changed. In the past, I've seen a ton of growth in their self-portraits!
This page could also be included in whatever memory book you are making for your students' last day, or collect and collate the pages to make a class book during the first week of school.
Click on the link to view/download the Bio-Writing Prompt Craftivity.
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"If the heavens were all parchment, and the trees of the forest all pens, and every human being were a scribe, it would [still] be impossible to record all that I have learned from my teachers." -Jack Zakkai
