All sorts of hexagons

Children often think of a hexagon as being this:

However, there are lots of other hexagons. They don't have to be regular, as long as they have six sides. We set out to find as many as we could using just two pattern blocks. Look at all the ones we found!

The children did really well:

Getting hands on and specific; trying things out, even when you've no idea to start with.

Working within a constraint towards a target.

Learning from others but also trying new things.

Finding systematic ways to explore a possibility space.
Disrupting successful ways, to see if there's another way.

Thinking about and discussing what counts as same (rotations, reflections, different ways of constructing).
Getting used to the idea of "finding all the ways".
Seeing how 2 sides join to sometimes make two sides, sometimes one.

We found 17 ways of making a hexagon with two shapes: