Activities for shapes

25 Creative Activities and Ideas For Learning Shapes

Learning shapes is one of the earliest concepts we teach kids. This readies them for geometry in the years ahead, but it’s also an important skill for learning how to write and draw. We’ve rounded up our favorite activities for learning shapes, both 2-D and 3-D. They all work well in the classroom or at home.

1. Start with an anchor chart

Colorful anchor charts like these are terrific reference tools for kids learning shapes. Have kids help you come up with examples for each one.

Learn more: A Spoonful of Learning/Kindergarten Kindergarten

2. Sort items by shape

Collect items from around the classroom or house, then sort them by their shapes. This is a fun way for kids to realize that the world around them is full of circles, squares, triangles, and more.

Learn more: Busy Toddler/Shape-Sorting

3. Snack on some shapes

Everyone loves a learning activity you can eat! Some food items are already the perfect shape; for others, you’ll have to get a little creative.

Learn more: Chieu Anh Urban

4. Print with shape blocks

Grab your shape blocks and some washable paint, then stamp shapes to form a design or picture.

Learn more: Pocket of Preschool

5. Go on a shape hunt

These “magnifying glasses” make an adventure of learning shapes! Tip: Laminate them for long-term use.

Learn more: Nurture Store UK

6. Hop along a shape maze

Use sidewalk chalk to lay out a shape maze on the playground or driveway. Choose a shape and hop from one to the next, or call out a different shape for every jump!

Learn more: Creative Family Fun

7. Assemble a truck from shapes

Cut out a variety of shapes (excellent scissors skills practice!), then assemble a series of trucks and other vehicles.

Learn more: Little Family Fun

8. Stretch out shapes on geoboards

Teachers and kids love geoboards, and they’re a great tool for learning shapes. Give students example cards to follow, or ask them to figure out the method on their own.

Learn more: Mrs. Jones’ Creation Station

9. Drive on shaped roads

Use these free printable road mats to work on shapes. Bonus: Make your own road shapes from sentence strips!

Learn more: PK Preschool Mom

10. Find shapes in nature

Take your shape hunt outside and look for circles, rectangles, and more in nature. For another fun activity, gather items and use them to make shapes too.

Learn more: Nurture Store UK

11. Put together craft stick shapes

Add Velcro dots to the ends of wood craft sticks for quick and easy math toys. Write the names of each shape on the sticks for a self-correcting center activity.

Learn more: Surviving a Teacher’s Salary

12. Blow 3-D shape bubbles

This is a STEM activity that’s sure to fascinate everyone. Make 3-D shapes from straws and pipe cleaners, then dip them in a bubble solution to create tensile bubbles. So cool!

Learn more: Babble Dabble Do

13. Prep a shape pizza

Cover a paper plate “pizza” with lots of shape toppings, then count the number of each. Simple, but lots of fun and very effective.

Learn more: Mrs. Thompson’s Treasures

14. Construct shapes from toothpicks and Play-Doh

This is an excellent STEM challenge: how many shapes can you make using toothpicks and Play-Doh? Marshmallows work well for this activity too.

Learn more: Childhood 101

15. Outline shapes with stickers

Kids adore stickers, so they’ll enjoy filling in the outlines of the shapes they’re learning. They won’t realize it, but this gives them fine motor skills practice too!

Learn more: Busy Toddler/Sticker Shapes

16. Lace shapes

Lacing cards have long been a classic, but we really like this version that uses drinking straws. Just cut them into pieces and glue them along the edges of the cards.

Learn more: Planning Playtime

17. Make shapes with LEGO bricks

LEGO math is always a winner! This activity also makes a good STEM challenge. Can your students figure out how to make a circle from straight-sided blocks?

Learn more: Pocket of Preschool

18. Categorize shapes by their attributes

Work on geometry terms like “sides” and “vertices” when you sort shapes using these attributes. Start by placing shapes into paper bags and asking students questions like, “The shape in this bag has 4 sides. What could it be?”

Learn more: Susan Jones Teaching

19. Count and graph shapes

These free printable worksheets challenge kids to identify shapes, then count and graph them. Lots of math skills, all in one!

Learn more: Playdough to Plato

20. Create a shape monster

Add arms, legs, and faces to create cheery (or scary) shape monsters! These make for a fun classroom display.

Learn more: Fantastic Fun and Learning

21. Sift through rice for shapes

Sure, kids can identify their shapes by sight, but what about by touch? Bury blocks in a bowl of rice or sand, then have kids dig them out and guess the shape without seeing them first.

Learn more: Fun With Mama

22. Craft an ice cream cone

Ice cream cones are made up of several shapes. Encourage kids to see how many different ways they can make a sphere of “ice cream.”

Learn more: Extremely Good Parenting

23. Ask “What does the shape say?”

If you don’t mind the risk of getting that song stuck in your kids’ heads, this is such a neat way to combine writing and math.

Learn more: Around the Kampfire

24. Piece together shape puzzles

Use wood craft sticks to make simple puzzles for kids who are learning their shapes. These are inexpensive enough that you can make full sets for each of your students.

Learn more: Toddler at Play

25. Feed a shape monster

Turn paper bags into shape-eating monsters, then let kids fill their hungry bellies!

Learn more: Teach Pre-K

From teaching shapes to long division and everything in between, these are the 25 Must-Have Elementary Classroom Math Supplies You Can Count On.

Plus, 22 Active Math Games and Activities For Kids Who Love to Move.

27 Amazing Activities for Learning Shapes

Learning shapes is an early and important teaching concept. This is a terrific way to introduce children to problem-solving skills and pattern recognition. The learning of shapes prepares students for future math courses such as geometry. Check out these 27 amazing ideas for learning shapes!

Create your very own box of chocolates with a variety of shapes. Use a stencil to cut shapes from foam board. Draw basic shapes inside a heart drawing to represent a box of Valentine’s chocolates. Students will match the foam shapes to the drawings. This is a super activity for Valentine’s Day!

Learn more: Active Littles

Shape Bingo is a great idea for 3D shape practice! This fun activity is free and can be used in the classroom with the entire group or for classroom learning centers.

Learn more: 123 Homeschool 4 Me

For this engaging activity, use painter's tape to create outlines of shapes on the floor. Have your children hop from shape to shape. You can have them say the name of the shape once they hop into it. They can also throw beanbags into the shapes for more fun.

Learn more: Learn Play Imagine

Kids will absolutely love this shape activity. They will get to help make chocolate chip cookies shaped like X's and O's. Once they finish playing a few rounds of tic-tac-toe, they will have the opportunity to eat the delicious cookies!

Learn more: The Realistic Mama

This is a favorite shape sorter for 2 to 3-year-old children. You will need contact paper, scrapbook paper, and felt or foam shape pieces. You can make or own or purchase them.

Learn more: Happy to Shelf

Children love building snowmen, so they will have a blast with this free snowman-themed activity! Kids will learn about shapes as they match each snowman's head to its same shaped body.

Learn more: Tot Schooling

Cut out several shapes and create a piece of art as a classroom example. Next, give each student a stack of the same shapes and have them create the same masterpiece. When students have completed their artwork, you will have a fun classroom display!

Learn more: Raising the Spenglers

8. Marshmallow Geometry

Marshmallow geometry is an engaging and fun activity for teaching children shapes. They will learn the names of 2D shapes as well as their characteristics. All you need is pretzel sticks, miniature marshmallows, markers, and card stock or construction paper.

Learn more: Playdough to Plato

Children love these shape poems! These poems are free and allow students to be introduced to a variety of key shapes. Leave these displayed in your classroom for students to see on a daily basis.

Learn more: Miss Kindergarten

These free shape printables are a fun activity for shape identification for preschoolers and toddlers. They will learn to be successful at shape-matching while they strengthen their fine motor skills.

Learn more: Modern Preschool

Purchase wooden circles, a plastic ice tray, and shape stickers or colored paper cut in shapes. If you use colored paper, you will also need glue to attach the shapes to the wooden circles. Children will place the wooden circles in the correct spot on the tray.

Learn more: Mess for Less

The shapes monsters craft is so much fun for kids! They will learn about shapes and colors as they create their very own monsters. The only supplies you need are construction paper, glue, and scissors.

Learn more: Live Well Play Together

Teach children about the circle shape. You will need colored paper, scissors, and glue to complete this activity. Have the child cut out a large circle and many small circles. The child will then glue the smaller circles on the larger circle.

Learn more: Family Education

Using stories about shapes is a terrific way to teach kids all about shapes! They can learn about shape names with these books. This resource will help you find the perfect shape book to use with your child today!

Learn more: 123 Homeschool 4 Me

Using shape workbooks is a wonderful way to teach your children all about shapes. This workbook is created for preschoolers and offers shape guides, tracing, patterns, matching, activities, and much more. Buy yours today!

Learn more: Libro World

This simple shape puzzle is a DIY activity that is so easy to make. Your little one will enjoy playing with it over and over again as they learn all about basic shapes and their characteristics.

Learn more: Laughing Kids Learn

Preschoolers will love this shape activity, and it is so easy and inexpensive to create. Just draw some shapes on pieces of paper and have your child find real-life objects to match the shapes.

Learn more: Frugal Fun 4 Boys

You and your child can venture out in nature and have your child pick up a few small sticks to create simple craft stick shapes. They will have a blast in nature as well as create these basic shapes.

Learn more: Toddler in Action

The little learners will have lots of sensory shape fun with this activity! These sensory bottles are super easy to make, and little ones can twist, flip, or shake the bottles to find the basic shapes. These bottles are perfect for center time or quiet time!

Learn more: Pocket of Preschool

Little ones will enjoy making clouds out of shapes. This activity is simple to create; all you need is a shape printable, glue, and cotton balls. Let your little one create clouds of different shapes and have a blast doing so.

Learn more: Planning Playtime

21. Spaghetti Noodle Shapes

This free resource provides 10 shapes printables that will help your child strengthen motor skills while learning all about shapes. Your child will use cooked spaghetti noodles to outline the shapes. They will have a tremendous amount of fun completing this activity!

Learn more: Schooltime Snippets

Kids will love this bubble wrap painting activity, and they will learn about shapes. They will have a blast popping the bubbles and painting different shape patterns. Your child will also develop fine motor skills as well as improve hand and eye coordination.

Learn more: Learning 4 Kids

Purchase a large tub of foam sticker shapes, so your child can create a shape rainbow. Draw the outline of a rainbow and put one shape of each color in a certain place on the rainbow outline and then allow your child to fill in the rest.

Learn more: Fun Learning for Kids

Are you searching for an engaging activity that will increase your child's fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination? If so, this is the perfect activity. It will also teach your child about shapes and encourage the use of critical thinking skills.

Learn more: Fun Learning for Kids

This video will explain the preschool pipe cleaner shapes activity. This fabulous activity is perfect for 2-4-year-old children. It increases fine motor skills as well as hand-eye coordination. Your child will also learn about shapes, colors, and counting.

Learn more: Zaneta The Work At Home Mama

Your child will learn about shapes while creating a cool robot! This engaging activity also develops cognitive skills and fine motor skills. Cut out the shapes and glue the robot together.

Learn more: Fun House Toys

Draw a variety of basic shapes on a coffee filter. Name a shape and have your child drip water over the correct shape. The shape will disappear, and you can move to the next shape. This activity is also terrific for fine motor practice!

Learn more: Gift of Curiosity

Joint activity on application of geometric shapes in groups of primary preschool age

“The most effective and complete tasks of the development of preschoolers are solved in within the framework of productive activities and allow developing the desire for creative activity, imagination and creativity, to master cultural means of fixing the future product in the form of a verbal description and graphic models, to form the ability to goal-setting and volitional effort."
N. A. Korotkova

Artistic design is one of the most productive activities which allows the child, by means of symbolic means, to create an artistic image of the surrounding world and convey their emotional attitude towards it.

Image construction is created by a specific organization space, connecting geometric shapes to each other to convey the main parts and details of the depicted objects. This activity is modeling character. Modeling is an attempt to use cognitive tasks of visual, motor, associative memory. In the studies of many psychologists (L.A. Wenger, D.B. Elkonin and others) noted the availability of the method modeling for preschool children. It is determined by the fact that modeling is based on the principle of substitution - a real object can be replaced in activities of children with a different sign, object, image.

Children, constructing images of objects of objective reality, convey not so much the general appearance of an object as what is known about its structure, relation between the main parts, i.e. produce an image much closer to models than to photographs.

organization of an additional service that would be educational and interesting for children and meet the needs of the parents. Working on the program of L.A. Wenger “Development”, teachers came to the conclusion that the most optimal option is additional section of the program "artistic design". Based on it we have developed a system of joint productive creative activity teacher with children in the junior and middle groups "Colorful mosaic".

The main goal of artistic design: development in children artistic abilities, including the symbolic expression of one's relationship to reality.

But in the process of constructive activity, a preschooler masters a wide range of visual means - i.e. “language” of visual activity (line, shape, color, background, rhythm, composition, etc.) - thanks to which it builds image and expresses their feelings in visually perceived images.

As the experience of AMDOU teachers shows, teaching children geometric applications contribute to the development of sensory perception; precise movements hands and fine motor skills of fingers; spatial perception; artistic and graphic skills; artistic imagination and aesthetic taste; the development of some organizational skills artistic creativity; education of the audience culture. Introduction child into the world of artistic design involves the simultaneous development of cognitive, creative, artistic and constructive abilities.

This work is carried out in four stages.

1. Familiarization of children with the functional purpose of the design material.
2. Joint constructive activity of an adult and a child in completion of an unfinished specific image.
3. Construction of various images (subject images) of different degree of difficulty.
4. Recreation of a plot composition based on familiar fairy tales.

We adhere to the following principles for organizing joint activities for artistic design:

1. Combination of individual and collective forms of work that allow organize meaningful communication of children, contributing to the awareness of ways activities and increase its productivity;

2. Ensuring the relationship of artistic design with other types children's activities - playing, drawing, getting to know the art literature, etc. This contributes to the development of both constructive and artistic skills, and games, communication skills;

3. The combination of different types of materials in artistic design, which gives you the opportunity to experiment with new material;

4. Transition of activities jointly with an adult to independent, which contributes to the education of independent thinking and initiative in choosing ways of activity.

S.L. Novoselova notes that “to ensure truly creative development the child needs the unity of the developing subject environment and the content communication between adults and children.

To effectively solve the tasks set for artistic design, taking into account Federal state requirements for the structure the main general educational program of preschool education, approved by order Ministry of Education and Science of Russia dated November 23, 2009 No. 655, model of the educational process provides for the joint activities of an adult and children and independent activities of preschoolers, methodological and material - technical support.

As part of the methodological support:

• Advanced planning of a joint productive activities of the educator with children “Colorful mosaic”.
• Advance thematic planning developed, including relationship with other sections of the "Development" program and regime processes.
• GCD plans are being developed as part of joint productive activities for artistic design.
• Project activities are organized.
• Diagnostic data is being analyzed.
• Logistics and technical support involves.
• Production of constructor elements from different materials.
• Development of didactic aids.
• Selection of works of art and illustrative material.
• Replenishment of the center of artistic creativity with a variety of materials for independent productive activity.

As the authors of the program say, artistic design from flat constructor elements, is largely synthetic activity that is most similar to a story game, application, but not equate to them. We offer children geometric shapes of different colors and paper size. Born applique work kid caregivers shown at the exhibition.

Geometric figures from other materials: isolon, fabric, cardboard are used for independent and individual activities of the educator with children.

Children create designs on colorful backgrounds: flannelgraphs, colored sheets, drawings.

In middle age, in addition to working with paper, joint activities involves the use of natural, waste and non-standard material.

The monitoring system provides for the analysis of the progress of the child in mastering tasks of development of artistic and constructive abilities.

Based on art design work at a young age, we we plan to make schemes less detailed at an older age and offer the child not ready-made geometric shapes, but cut them out yourself, first by contour, then independently from a colored sheet of paper.

In February 2012, teachers of AMDOU (deputy director for VMR Ardasheva E. S., educators: Kondratyeva L.A., Sharycheva E.D., Long L.Yu.) within the network interaction under the guidance of a methodologist of the center for advanced training and professional training of workers of preschool education in Izhevsk "Alternative" Askarova O.E. on the problem “Polyartistic approach to building the pedagogical process in preschool educational institutions” presented their experience of working in the city seminar “Integration of children's activities as a condition for the development integrative qualities of the personality of a preschooler ”for educators and leaders visual activity of Izhevsk and offered to participate in a master class, where colleagues were given the opportunity to plunge into the process of creating plot compositions based on the fairy tale “By the command of a pike”.

Integrated educational activity on the topic "Geometric figures in teaching counting and application of geometric figures "Butterfly" | Calendar-thematic planning in mathematics (middle group) on the topic:

Integrated lesson in the middle group on the topic

"Geometric figures in teaching counting and application of geometric shapes "Butterfly"

0003

mathematics: continue to teach children to count within 4, fix the name of geometric shapes (circle, oval, square, triangle), give children the concept of “diagonal” in an accessible way for them “from corner to corner”, learn to cut a square into triangles.

Art: teach children to make a composition of geometric shapes, use scissors, carefully stick the application, remove excess glue with a napkin, fix the name of the flowers.

There is a knock on the door, there is a basket behind the door, the teacher brings the basket into the group.

V-l:

- Guys, look, they brought us a basket. Let's see what's in it?

Opens the basket, there is a white bear cub Umka.

V-l:

- Guys, look who came to visit us! It's Umka!

Addresses the bear cub:

- Umka, where did you come from? You live far in the cold North, don't you?

Umka, sniffing, answers:

- Hello guys! I flew to you by plane, hid in a basket and flew in!

Val:

- We are very glad to see you, Umka, but are you upset about something?

Umka:

- My mother has a birthday soon. (shows a portrait of her mother)

How beautiful she is!

Val:

- You have a very beautiful mother, don't you guys? But after all, a birthday is a very cheerful holiday, and you cry?

Umka:

- I wanted to give her a butterfly, because we have no summer in the North, and we have never seen flowers and butterflies. I really really want my mommy to see a little bit of summer.

V-l:

- Wait, Umka, it's certainly very good that you decided to give your mother a little summer, but you're late, our summer is long over, and winter has come.

Umka:

- I already saw it, that's why I was upset, so now my mommy will not see summer! (starts to cry)

V-l:

- Wait, Umka don't cry, the guys and I will try to help you. Really guys? Even if you arrived on time and caught a butterfly for your mother and picked flowers, they would immediately freeze in your frosts. It is not necessary to catch butterflies and pick flowers if you want to see summer in winter.

Addresses children:

- Guys, tell us how you can make summer be with us even in winter?

Children's answers.

V-l:

- Now you understand, Umka, what gift can you give your mom?

Umka:

- Yes, it's great that you can make summer with your own hands! But I don't know how to cut or glue, what should I do?

Val:

- Don't worry, Umka, the guys and I will help you and give your mom not a single butterfly, but a lot! Okay guys?

Children's answers.

I make a riddle about a butterfly:

There is a flower on a flower, drinking flower juice

Next, we consider a butterfly from geometric shapes, find out what shapes and how much we need to complete the intended application. We repeat and fix the name of geometric shapes and the count within 4.

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