
Getting Started With Hexagonal Thinking

Hexagonal thinking is an activity that allows individuals and teams to think about what they have learned and to make connections between ideas. This activity could be used as a review at the end of a lesson or unit, as well as a formative or summative activity.
This activity uses all modalities (visual, kinesthetic, and auditory), which helps to increase student engagement.

Getting Started With Hexagonal Thinking
Students could work individually or in a team. Each individual worker and team receives a set of hexagons to use. Teachers can give students blank hexagons and have them decide which key ideas to write on each one or print the hexagons with terms on them (included in this resource.)
Teams should review the terms and discuss how they connect. As they discuss these ideas, they should place the hexagons in connecting webs. (Each hexagon could connect to six other terms.)
After teams have created a web, they should continue to evaluate their decisions and move terms around until they believe they have made the strongest connecting web possible.
Once the team is satisfied with their web, they should number the strongest connections and elaborate their reasoning for those connections.

Ideas For Use
- Students could use the hexagons to make linear connections with different branches.
- Students could use a main hexagon and connect as many terms to it as they can (like a flower.)
- Teachers could have students create a hexagonal web after lesson one and save it. After each lesson, teachers could have students add new terms to their web.


Assessing The Activity
- Grade each team’s discussion of the terms. (Teachers should circulate to each group as they work.)
- Grade the completed webs based on how many connections were made.
- Grade students’ written or recorded explanations of the connections.
- Have students evaluate how their team worked together to complete the project.

Differentiation
- Teachers could change the number of terms students are given.
- Teachers could reduce or increase the number of hexagons students need to connect.
- Teachers could require students to provide supporting evidence in their explanations.
- Teachers could reduce or increase how many connections students need to explain.
- Students could record their analysis of the connections using a program like Flipgrid instead of writing them.

Free Hexagonal Thinking Activity
Just click on the photo to pick up your copy.

Looking For Resources To Save You Prep Time?
-
Math Test Prep Practice Test 4th Grade FSA Multiplication Fractions Geometry+
$5.50 Buy Now -
Math Test Prep Kerplunk Review Game 3rd Grade FSA AIR Division Fractions+
$4.00 Buy Now -
Math Test Prep JENGA Review Game 3rd Grade FSA AIR Measurement Rounding+
$4.00 Buy Now -
5th Grade Vocabulary BalloonPop™ Digital Review Games Set 1
$5.00 Buy Now -
4th Grade Grammar & Spelling BalloonPop™ Digital Review Games Set 1
$5.00 Buy Now -
The Chicken Squad by Doreen Cronin Novel Study Teaching Guide
$4.50 Buy Now
I cannot access the file. Did I do something wrong?