Colonial Regions Hexagonal Sorting Activity
A hands-on hexagonal sorting activity where 8th graders cut out 28 terms, people, and concepts from the English colonies and arrange them into a connection web across New England, the Middle Colonies, and the Southern Colonies. It builds historical reasoning, cause-and-effect thinking, and the ability to justify relationships among colonial topics, and it closes with a written record of the five strongest connections.
Teacher Guide & Tips
- Use this as a review station or a 45-minute post-unit activity after students have studied the English colonies, so they already have the vocabulary and context to make connections.
- Discussion question: Why might Mercantilism or the Great Awakening connect to more than one region, and what does that tell us about how colonies were linked?
- Scaffold for struggling readers: Provide a word bank or a short reference sheet listing each hexagon's region, then have students group by region first before forming cross-region links.
- Extension for advanced students: Ask them to write a short justification for each of their five strongest connections, explaining the historical evidence behind it and noting one connection they considered but rejected.
- Plan roughly 10 minutes for cutting, 25 minutes for building and gluing the web, and 10 minutes for recording and sharing connections.
Colonial Regions Hexagonal Sorting Activity
A hands-on hexagonal sorting activity where 8th graders cut out 28 terms, people, and concepts from the English colonies and arrange them into a connection web across New England, the Middle Colonies, and the Southern Colonies. It builds historical reasoning, cause-and-effect thinking, and the ability to justify relationships among colonial topics, and it closes with a written record of the five strongest connections.
Teacher Guide & Tips
- Use this as a review station or a 45-minute post-unit activity after students have studied the English colonies, so they already have the vocabulary and context to make connections.
- Discussion question: Why might Mercantilism or the Great Awakening connect to more than one region, and what does that tell us about how colonies were linked?
- Scaffold for struggling readers: Provide a word bank or a short reference sheet listing each hexagon's region, then have students group by region first before forming cross-region links.
- Extension for advanced students: Ask them to write a short justification for each of their five strongest connections, explaining the historical evidence behind it and noting one connection they considered but rejected.
- Plan roughly 10 minutes for cutting, 25 minutes for building and gluing the web, and 10 minutes for recording and sharing connections.