Imagine yourself as a student in a new classroom during the first week of school. Unless your teacher starts off with at least a few getting-to-know you activities, it might be weeks before you feel comfortable enough to talk with your classmates and actively participate in lessons.
On the other hand, if you’re lucky enough to have a teacher who does start off with icebreaker activities, you’ll settle in and be ready to learn in no time!
Unfortunately, as a teacher, you know that there’s one problem with the second scenario: it’s challenging to find meaningful icebreakers that don’t feel like a complete waste of time. That’s why you’ll love the Buddy Bio Poems partner poetry lesson! Having students write poems about each other is a perfect way to combine a content-based writing lesson with a fun icebreaker!
In the Buddy Bio Poems lesson, each student interviews a partner to gather facts and information about his or her new classmate. Then everyone composes a short bio poem to share what was learned during their interviews.
The Buddy Bio Poem idea began as a fun back-to-school writing activity based on my popular Bio Poems Made Easy lesson. Later, as I began to write the directions and create the printables to go with the lesson, I realized that the activity was worthy of creating an entirely new resource!
Ready-to-Use Buddy Bio Poems Lesson
If you like the Buddy Bio Poems concept, you can adapt the printables in my Poems Made Easy to use with the activity. But if you’re short on time, you might want to purchase my ready-to-use Buddy Bio Poems lesson from TpT. To take closer look at the activity, click here for a full preview.
The ready-to-use Buddy Bio Poems resource includes teacher directions, a sample bio poem, buddy interview questions, a list of character traits, a bio poem planning page, and a variety of decorative writing papers for the final poems. In other words, I’ve done all the work for you, and all you have to do is print what you need and have fun teaching the lesson!
Buddy Bio Poems is just one of the resources in my Poetry Unit Bundle, and you’ll save over 30% if you purchase this resource as a part of that bundle.
Ideas for Sharing Buddy Bio Poems
Did I mention that bio poems make a terrific bulletin board display, perfect for open house? One option is to add a student photo to the final version of each poem as shown in the example below. If you choose this option and post the finished products on a bulletin board or wall, your students will learn each other’s names in no time!
Buddy Bio Poems can also be laminated and bound together to create a class book to keep in a literacy center. Or you could scan the poems, convert them to PDF files, and create a digital book to publish on a class website or blog.
Buddy Bio Poems for Any Time of the Year!
In addition to being a fun back-to-school icebreaker, the Buddy Bio Poems activity makes a fun lesson during the hectic days before a holiday. It’s also a terrific introductory lesson for a poetry unit. No matter when you do this activity, your students will be proud of their poems and will enjoy learning fun facts about their classmates!
