Six

SIX

OBSERVING SIX WITH YOUNG CHILDREN

Observing six includes exploring geometric expressions of six, i.e., hexagons, hexagrams;
polyhedrons such as a hexagonal pyramid and a hexagonal prism.

INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITIES

Have a table with natural and other characteristic objects for children to look at and gently touch. Make a ceremony of the placement of any new object or its picture to help create interest (e.g., honeycomb, yellow jacket nest, snowflake, insects).
“What do you know about six?” (e.g., An insect has six legs; snowflakes are six-sided.)
Play “I Spy with My Little Eye,” finding hexagons and hexagrams throughout the room.
Challenge children to make hexagons and hexagrams with their bodies.
Have six children sit in chairs placed at the vertices of a hexagon shape and help them hold a length of yarn to delineate the shape. Invite other children to lie down on the floor under the hexagon and look up at it.

LIFE SKILLS

Sort a collection of hexagons according to size or color.
Thread six beads (purple) onto a pipe cleaner or length of string and fashion into jewelry.
Stitch around edges of hexagonal cards.
Cut along a hexagonal path.
Engage children in various hex nut and bolt works.
Examine a honeycomb before having a honey snack.

SENSORIAL EXPLORATION

Hang a mobile with hexagons from the ceiling.
Invite finger-tracing of various hexagonal and hexagram shapes.
Place tape to create a hexagon on floor; invite children to various exercises (e.g., walking, sitting). Consider average length of children’s legs so that six can sit here and reform the shape with their legs.
Draw hexagons in a tray of sand or shaving cream.
“Draw” hexagons with your finger in the palm of child’s hand or on his back.
Feel sandpaper hexagon and sandpaper numeral six; make crayon rubbings of the same.
Hold hexagonal pyramids and hexagonal prisms of various sizes, one at a time, in two hands. (Patterns are available for making various polyhedrons from paper or card stock.)
Explore bubble-making with various open-form polyhedrons: a hexagonal pyramid and a hexagonal prism.
Explore patterning and tessellating properties of hexagons.
Push or pull a six-pound weight in a box or wagon.

MATH

Explore a basket containing six of various items (e.g., six beads, six pencils, six apples).
Name items that the child can find and bring to you on a tray (“Please bring me six…”).
Display currency units of choice (e.g., six dollars, six euros, six yen, six pesos).
Count various objects in room by six. (Counting and skip counting songs are available.)
Display and work with units of measure (e.g., six ounces, six pounds, six inches, six feet, six meters, six minutes, six hours).
There are a total of six matryoshka dolls nested together.

LANGUAGE

Read aloud picture books that harmonize with the number six theme (e.g., Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline B. Martin; The Song of Six Birds by Rene Deetlefs).
Invite child to the nature table and engage child in conversation about the objects on display; have child write about the objects (teacher may write child’s words); invite child to “read” his story to his friends.
Trace within hexagonal stencils and around hexagonal forms (pre-writing skill).
Trace printed, broken-line hexagons off or on writing lines (pre-writing skill); extend into connect-the-six-dots activities.
Pin-punch paper hexagons (pre-writing skill).
Provide materials for children to make little books about six. Include pictures (e.g., a cake with six candles, a fish tank with six fish).
Explore sign language for six and hexagon.
Add relevant words to Word Wall (e.g., six, sixth, hexagon); Greek and Latin prefixes (e.g., hexa—as in hexagon, hexagram, hexapod, sex—as in sextet); include related pictures of natural and man-made constructs.
Add to three-part card activities (e.g., hexagon).
Explore phrases (e.g., “at sixes and sevens,” “six of one and a half dozen of the other”).

CULTURE

Spotlight the words for six as you learn to count together, one to ten, in other languages.
Look for expressions of six on a variety of flags (e.g., Israeli, Ugandan).
Share expressions of six elsewhere in various cultures.

History and Timelines

Add to the linear display of calendar months; guide understanding of six months.
Add to the linear display of photographs of a child; add one from his or her sixth birthday—continuing concept of a lifetime.
Refer to a linear timeline of the ages and find the early civilizations of Egypt, the Americas, and Islam; explore work of the ancient craftsmen who used geometry extensively, both structurally and symbolically; focus on six and the geometric expressions of six.

Art and Music

Invite child to the nature table and engage child in conversation about the objects on display; have child draw/map the objects to create a still life.
Cut or pin-punch hexagonal shapes.
Paste hexagonal shapes.
Stencil hexagonal shapes.
Explore what can be created with hexagonal shapes (e.g., honeycombs, snowflakes).
Print hexagonal shapes using various items.
Explore patterning and tessellating properties of hexagons.
Provide coloring sheets with hexagonal patterns.
Marble-roll paint onto paper in hexagonal pan or box.
Look for hexagons within selected pieces of art (e.g., Verbum by M.C. Escher).
Cut paper snowflakes.
Sing and dance (e.g., add sixth verse to “The Ants Go Marching”).
Count the six strings on a standard guitar; count the six basic tone holes on many woodwind instruments (e.g., penny whistle, clarinet, saxophone).
Introduce a performance by six instrumentalists or singers as a sextet.

Science

Examine snowflakes and books about snowflakes (e.g., Snowflakes in Photographs by W.A. Bentley).
Look at The Periodic Table of Elements; six is the atomic number of carbon.

Botany/Zoology/Human Body

Study insects, an animal with six legs (hexapod).
Examine bees’ honeycombs, wasps’ and hornets’ nests and hives, which are built of hexagonal cells.
Look for hexagonal shapes on snakeskins and tortoise shells.
Examine highly magnified pictures of the compound eyes of flies for hexagonal components.

ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES

Have children find an expression of six outside (e.g., flowers, insects, snowflakes).
Invite six children to sit on the patio and roll a ball to each other; talk about the shape expressed, i.e., a hexagon.
Play Chinese checkers.