The first week of school is arguably the most important of the year. It's when you establish routines and procedures as well as establish rapport with your students. When I was going through my certification program, I had to do an elaborate first five days plan, complete with a script to follow. This plan broke down everything from how I would greet students to when I would introduce routines and procedures and what back-to-school activity I would use that day.
While I don't get quite that technical with my first week these days, that structure definitely helped me in terms of rethinking what I do with those first critical days, and I still use some of what went into that plan (not all of it still applies all these years later). The biggest thing that I do differently now is that I do not plan a bunch of different activities for every day. That's exhausting and doesn't really do much in terms of establishing my classroom routines or expectations. So I designed an introductory activity that does -- the All About Me Hexagon.
I don't remember when I first learned about hexagonal thinking, but it's the foundation of this easy to use introductory activity. For those of you who are not familiar, in a nutshell, hexagons are the perfect shape for examining how things connect. You can apply the concept to almost anything, and it works well for any class, but for this activity specifically, it's all about finding connections among classmates.
All you need is a hexagon that has been divided into six sections (one section per side). You can see the one I made as an example to show students above. The hexagon itself takes up about half a piece of copy paper; I use the other half for the instructions. For mine, I have three requirements:
- Name: I don't require last names, but when I have multiple students with the same first name, they have to put their full name on the back. I do allow nicknames but only after I approve them (full names must be on the back for these students).
- Favorite Subject: I do not limit this to just academic subjects. Our students are exposed to quite a few specials including band and art. I do not allow them to use lunch as their favorite subject.
- Hobby/Sport/Activity: Students must put at least one thing they enjoy doing in one of the sections.
That leaves three sections that students can fill with whatever they want to so long as it tells me something about them (and is school appropriate). This can be other hobbies, sports, or activities they participate in, favorite books or authors, music, quotes, etc. Students have free reign on what goes into each section. They can use words, illustrations, or a combination of the two, but everything is done by hand.
The only other requirements are that the hexagon must be filled and colored and that everything needs to be within the outer lines because they'll be cut out. I do require my students to cut these out before they turn them in.
We work on these in class anywhere from three to four days, depending on what day of the week our first day falls on, but I do not extend this activity into week two. I use this activity to introduce my Writing Center and establish the procedures for how students will use their writing folders throughout the year, then as the week progresses I use it to reinforce the writing center routine. This activity also activates our community supply center routines and shows me how students interact with each other in this environment.
On the final day, or the due date, I allow students to walk around with their hexagons to see how many sides they can connect with their classmates.
So what do I get out of this activity? The main thing this activity shows me is which of my students are more visual learners versus those who do better with words/writing. But also I get to see which students take their time, which ones rush, who would rather spend their class time chatting than working, which ones ask a billion questions, etc. This is truly a community-building activity.
This is one of the few activities that I put up every single student's work -- even the ugly ones. And yes, I tell my students that on day one. I also tell them that they should not finish this on the first day, although there will always be at least one in every class who does rush through it. I display every single student hexagon somewhere in or outside my classroom for a LONG time. One year they stayed up until after Christmas break.
Here are some of my past displays.
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