UPDATE 8/3/2023: If you like this idea for Back to School, check out my newest post on using Hexagonal Thinking for creating Class Contracts.
Longtime readers of this blog will know that I am a HUGE, TREMENDOUS FAN of Hexagonal Thinking. I do blog posts on it, PD’s on it, and pretty much recommend it to everyone I meet professionally.
One way you can use Hexagonal Thinking is to get to know students at the beginning of the school year. Give them each a hexagon to design where they reveal some things about themselves. Then see if they can connect their hexagons to each other’s based on similar sides. For example, I put some of my “favorites” in the hexagon below. If someone else has a hexagon with pizza as a favorite, they can put their hexagon next to mine with those two sides touching. You could put this on a bulletin board, so you have the whole class displayed on the board, where there is at least one connection for everyone, and some of them may have multiple connections.
I love to use Canva because I can set up frames to drag photos into easily, as I did with the triangle frames within the hexagon. If you use Canva, here is the template. Or, if you prefer to have students draw or write on a physical hexagon, here is a blank PDF version.
Either way, the hexagons will need to be printed and cut out so that students can try to match sides.
You can just have students put a favorite in each section, or give them prompts like: something that makes you smile, something that challenges you, something that is easy for you, etc… I wouldn’t go too deep as this is a beginning of the year activity so students need to develop some trust first.
I’ll be adding this post to my Back to School Wakelet. And here is one of my posts about using Hexagonal Learning in case the concept is new to you.
