Learning shapes isn’t just about teaching your child how to draw a circle or square. When we look closely enough, we may recognize just how many shapes occur naturally in the world around us. Not just in math, but also in reading, science, and art!
Why Learning Shapes Matters
As we mentioned, shapes are all around us. If you do a quick glance around the room you’re currently sitting in, we bet you could identify a handful of shapes within a matter of seconds.
For a young preschooler, learning shapes can be incredibly helpful by offering an early step to understanding how numbers and objects relate to one another.
Pre-k math will show kids how easy it is to count the number of sides of a single shape to get a handle on applying concrete counting skills to a visual object.
But that’s not all shapes are good for!
There are five different mathematical ideas your child will need as they grow into capable mathematicians. Below are some of the ways learning shapes can help them get a grasp on these ideas.
Distinguishing Between Objects
Learning shapes helps your child learn to differentiate between objects.
In order to memorize how shapes are different from one another, they’ll learn to pay attention to the little details that distinguish shapes.
This detail-oriented learning helps them across the board, no matter what subject they’re tackling head-on!
Spatial Reasoning And Problem Solving
We’ve all seen shape puzzles; they’re popular for a reason.
The blanks inside the puzzle develop your child’s spatial reasoning and problem-solving skills, as they have to try multiple shapes until they find the right one to fit each space.
Learning about shapes directly increases these abilities.
Categorization
Your child will learn how to couple their differentiation skills with their categorization skills.
By separating shapes based on their similarities and differences or by specific characteristics such as color, size, and amount, your child will be able to accurately sort and categorize objects.
These skills benefit mathematical thinking because they help children understand sets and subsets, which can improve their understanding of concepts behind math procedures.
Counting And Patterns
Like we mentioned before, shapes help your child learn how to count. They can easily count the number of sides on each shape to help them remember the details of these shapes.
They will learn how to form patterns with shapes, as well!
4 Fun Activities For Learning Shapes
Here are some of our favorite activities for learning shapes. Try them at home with your growing mathematician!
1) Shape Scavenger Hunt
What You’ll Need
- Good weather (if you choose to do this outdoors)
- A cheat sheet of basic shapes
- A marker
What To Do
You and your child can go for a walk in the neighborhood or hunt for shapes inside the house on a rainy day.
You’ll snoop around the house like sneaky shape detectives, using your “cheat sheet” of shapes to keep a tally of how many times you can find each shape in your home.
If this is the first time your child has attempted identifying shapes in their environment, acting as an encouraging guide can be a great help!
Help them recognize the ways shapes naturally occur in everyday life — mirrors can be rectangles or circles; pizza slices are like triangles; and so on.
Keeping track of what your child can find will give both them and you some insight.
They’ll understand just how many shapes are all around them, and you may notice that your child needs a bit more practice with recognizing certain shapes.
2) PlayDoh Tracing
What You’ll Need
- Several sheets of paper
- A marker
- PlayDoh of different colors
What To Do
You’ll start out by prepping the pieces of paper. Each sheet will hold a single type of shape.
For our example, we’ll have one sheet for squares, one for circles, and one for triangles. Feel free to add more shapes or start small with only one.
Start with a single shape, like a square. You’ll want to draw several squares of drastically different sizes on a single sheet of paper. Use thick, bold lines so your child can clearly see the perimeter of each shape.
Next, your child will use different colored PlayDoh to “fill” each square outline. You want them to use different colors so they can highlight a distinguishing characteristic between the squares — their size!
If your child is familiar with shapes already and you want to make this more advanced, you can draw several different shapes onto one piece of paper.
For our example, we will use circles, squares, and triangles (try rectangles, ovals, semi-circles, and pentagons for more advanced learners).
This time, your child will fill the outlines based on the type of shape they are. So, all circles will get the same color of PlayDoh, while all ovals get a different color. They will repeat this process until all of the shapes are full.
Finally, they can count how many of each shape (and color) they have.
3) Shape Stamp Paintings
What You’ll Need
- Sponges you’re comfortable cutting up
- A variety of paint (watered down)
- Sheets of paper
What To Do
This activity requires a bit of preparation before the fun can get started, but the masterpieces your child will make are worth it!
You’ll begin by cutting up the sponges into a mix of different identifiable shapes. We recommend incorporating both basic shapes and more interesting shapes, all with sides that are easy to count.
In addition to basic shapes like squares and circles, stars, ovals, and hearts are great ones to add in.
After all the sponges are cut, set out a few different colors of paint. It’s not necessary to assign specific colors to specific shapes, as a mix of both will allow your child to identify flexible patterns once the activity is complete.
With everything set, your child is ready to get splashing with the paint and sponges (figuratively speaking, of course!). They’ll use their sponges to stamp out a variety of shapes in multiple colors.
Once everything is dry, you can challenge them to identify how many of each shape they stamped, how many times they used certain colors, and so on.
4) Shape Pizza
What You’ll Need
- Colored construction paper
- Yellow
- Red
- Green
- Brown
- Black
- White
- Scissors
- A single die
What To Do
You and your child will be opening your own pizzeria! The “secret ingredient” to your delicious pizza? Shapes!
To make a pizza, cut out a large circle for your crust. Then you’ll cut out a variety of ingredients. Depending on what your child likes to eat, you can adjust what ingredient each of your shapes will represent.
For our example, we will use these ingredients:
- Circles for pepperoni
- Triangles for cheese
- Rectangles for peppers
- Squares for mushrooms
- Semi-circles for olives
Make a menu with the shapes and what they stand for. Then place an order for which topping you want (start with one topping only) and have your child roll the die to see how many of that topping the pizza will have.
For example, if you want peppers and your child rolls a 2, they’ll place 2 rectangles on the pizza.
We recommend referring to the shape names as you order and again when “checking” the order. You could say, “That’s it! I get four semi-circle olives. Yum!” You can then switch roles and let your child order a pizza.
To play with older children or make the game a bit more challenging, order a pizza with more than one topping, with your child rolling the die the designated amount of times to determine how many of each topping you get.
If you wanted three toppings, for example, your child would roll the die three separate times to come up with the number of those toppings to put on your pizza.
Once you’re finished with one pizza, you can glue the shapes to the paper to save as a keepsake or remove them and make another pizza!
Learning Shapes Is Just The Beginning
We can’t capture all of the possibilities that come with learning shapes, but we hope this article helped paint a picture of how helpful and exciting shapes can be to your child’s learning adventures!
The ideas don’t stop here, either. We know not every family always has time to tackle a shape game filled with sticky glue and construction paper.
Sometimes you need quick and effective shape activities that don’t sacrifice fun in the name of functionality.
The HOMER Learn & Grow App has just what you need! We have tons of shape activities available for your child to do, like our Castle Creator or our Pizza Parlor, where they will get to make pizzas for customers who pick exactly how many toppings they want.
We hope you’ll give these activities a shot. We think you’ll be surprised how fun learning shapes can really be!