These five ways to use hexagonal thinking during the first few weeks of school will get the school year off to a great start! This approach to open-ended thinking will not only engage your students but also foster meaningful discussions and cultivate a classroom culture of curiosity and collaboration. Using hexagonal thinking will make your classroom the place to be! You can create an engaging and dynamic learning environment that stimulates deep understanding, sharpens critical thinking skills, and encourages active participation with the simple use of hexagons. So why wait? Start using hexagonal thinking asap with these 5 easy activities in the first weeks of school.
Family Homework Free Download
Speaking of back to school, one of my favorite things to do on the first day of school is to assign homework! I am not even joking. I love sending students home with a special assignment for their families to write me a letter of introduction to their student. It gives me a chance to begin the two-way communication between school and home which is so helpful throughout the year. Grab a copy of it here! The free Family Homework is in both Spanish and English. All you have to do is change the date, add your name, and print!
What is Hexagonal Thinking?
You need to know what hexagonal thinking is before we go any further. It’s a super simple concept to use in any subject or grade that can produce meaningful connections, conversations, and writings. Hexagonal thinking uses hexagon-shaped cards, each containing a key concept or topic related to the subject you’re teaching. Students are then tasked with arranging these hexagons to reflect the relationships between the ideas, creating a visual representation of their interconnectedness.
This interactive approach to learning helps students focus on making connections between concepts. My school district is pushing hard for students to transfer skills to what we are teaching them. By making these connections, students are actively working on their transfer skills. Hexagonal Thinking allows students to explore and express their understanding using any language they are comfortable with, fostering a sense of belonging and empowerment within the classroom. I have a blog post you can read here about why using hexagonal thinking with multilingual learners makes perfect sense.
Why should I use it during the first weeks of school?
The beauty of hexagonal thinking is that it can be applied across various subjects and grade levels. Whether it’s exploring historical events, dissecting scientific concepts, or personal reflection, hexagonal thinking provides a tool for students to delve deeper into their learning. As they become proficient in recognizing patterns and making connections, students will become more engaged and motivated to explore complex ideas. I know I want that type of engagement and motivation for my students.
By introducing hexagonal thinking to students at the start of the year, we can set the stage for using them all year long. This type of introduction will be done mainly with concepts they know best…themselves!
Your students and you will end up loving hexagonal thinking because it is so open-ended. It also provides a low-stress activity which is another reason why it’s great for the back-to-school season. Let’s start chatting about how you will use them in the first few weeks of school.
5 Easy Ways to Use Hexagonal Thinking at the Start of the Year
I wouldn’t use all five of these at the start of the year. A couple would be a great start.
- Personal Interests and Hobbies
Using hexagonal thinking as a getting-to-know-you activity is perfect! Students will write down personal interests and hobbies down on their hexagons. I suggest using five to seven for each student and yourself! Have students walk around and talk about their connections. You can put up prompts on your board to help guide their conversations.
After talking, have students form small groups of three or four. Have them start making connections between their interests and hobbies by connecting the sides of their hexagons together. Make it a requirement that students push their thinking to ensure their hexagon touches a hexagon of every member of their group.
You could end the activity there OR extend it further by having groups make connections with other groups. You can tape up connections on the board so you can see that everyone is connected in some way or another.
- Summer Activities
This one can be of fewer hexagons than the last one, aiming for three to five hexagons. You will have a mix of students who have a big trip, such as traveling to Europe, to those who mostly babysit their younger siblings. Make sure to emphasize that this is okay so students know they are in a welcoming and understanding environment.
Sharing summer activities will probably be harder for students to make connections because of the two extremes that your class might have. If students did the same thing (such as visited a library or went to the river), give them the green light to stack their hexagons on each other! They can also put them side by side and explain they went to the library for different reasons or visited different rivers. That’s the beauty of hexagonal thinking – it’s open to anything!
- Personal Goals and Academic Goals
Distribute five or six hexagonal cards to students so they can write down their personal and academic growth. You could do two different colored hexagons to show the difference. Encourage students to be specific.
A great support for this one would be to have examples of certain skills on the board such as “time management,” “communication skills,” or “resilience.” Students can be encouraged to make a specific goal based on those skills. This is a great way for students to envision their personal development journey.
- Review Last Year’s Content
This one veers off from students’ personal information to focusing more on academic content. This is a great activity to complete as a group so students can start talking to remind each other of what they learned last year! Instruct students to write down five to seven key concepts they remember from the previous year.
Have each group share what they wrote down and invite other groups to start making connections. If you have a projector and doc cam, start making the connections on your screen so students can see them. You could also easily tape them up on the board.
I like this activity because of how collaborative it is. One of my favorite things to tell students is “we don’t use Google, we use each other.” The room is FULL of so much knowledge, so why not use each other?! (Yes…we do resort to Google when there isn’t an absolute expert in the room!)
- Prior Knowledge of the Upcoming Year
This is another great one to do in groups or even with partners so students have a thinking buddy. List some or all of the units of the year and maybe a couple key words from that unit. Students will be writing down three to five words they know from the units you have provided. Challenge them not to use any words that are already on the board. Check out this example:
Units of the year
-Ancient Greece: city-state and military
-Ancient Rome: culture and gladiators
-Middle Ages: castles and the Black Plague
-Renaissance: Italy and arts
-Scientific Revolution: discoveries and the scientific method
-Enlightenment: Locke and Philosophy
Group A writes down the words: reformation, Michelangelo, Columbus, thinking, knights
Group B writes down: Athens, ships, navy, mythology, sculptures
Students will be asking how a ninja turtle is related to Columbus and their peers will explain to them that the TMNT actually got their name from artists of the Renaissance. We know that the first few weeks of school may be awkward at points. Using hexagonal thinking will give students a low-stress activity that will give them an easy entry point to the conversation.
By having such a vast array of topics, students are bound to have great conversations like who Michelangelo is or what mythology has to do with the Greeks. Students can then extend their thinking into connections with the words they have or with other words. Students can also explain why words have minimal or no connections.
Other helpful resources
If you enjoyed this blog post about hexagonal thinking during the first weeks of school, I know you enjoy some of my other posts. I love sharing classroom activities that I know work with secondary students. If you plan on using task cards for a lesson soon check out these Five Ready-to-Go Task Card Games for Any Classroom. In addition to sharing activities that I know work, I am also very passionate about language learners!! If you need some guidance with language learners, I am your gal! This blog post about Frontloading Vocabulary shares my go-to’s for supporting multilingual students with their development of academic vocabulary.
Hexagonal Thinking Mats
Don’t forget! All you need to get started with Hexagonal Thinking is some words and hexagonal cutouts. Hexagonal Thinking encourages students to engage deeply with complex topics while employing their language skills to make meaningful connections between ideas. I made these mats to use with hexagonal thinking mats and added reflection questions, plus there is a template for hexagon cutouts. Download them for FREE on TPT!
Closing
In conclusion, the first few weeks of school are crucial to setting the tone for the entire academic year. By incorporating hexagonal thinking into your classroom activities, you’re igniting a spark of curiosity and critical thinking and fostering a dynamic and collaborative learning environment. The adaptability of hexagonal thinking makes it a versatile tool that can be applied to a variety of subjects and grade levels, making it a perfect fit for the back-to-school season. I am excited for you to explore the five easy ways to integrate hexagonal thinking into your classroom. Whether you’re delving into personal interests, reviewing last year’s content, or helping students define their academic goals, each activity presents an opportunity to engage, connect, and inspire. Using hexagonal thinking the first weeks of school will be an activity you cannot pass up!
