Teaching Shapes in Preschool

How to Teach Shapes in Preschool

Do you teach shapes in your preschool or pre-k classroom? If you’re looking for fun, hands-on activities for teaching shapes that will get your kids excited about learning, then you’re in the right place!

How to Teach Shapes to Kids

Teaching Shapes in Preschool

Learning about 2D shapes is an important early math skill. There are so many different ways to teach your little learners about shapes, but the most effective methods will be those that provide opportunities for hands-on learning.

2D Shape Activities

Shapes are a Skill

This might be a surprise to some, but shapes are a skill, not a unit of study. A skill develops over time and needs to be reviewed and reinforced throughout the year.

Shape Manipulatives for Preschool

Teaching Shapes with Manipulatives

Your little learners will benefit the most from exploring and creating with shapes all over the classroom, not just in the math center.

You can put shape manipulatives like pattern blocks, geoboards, and magnetic shapes in your classroom centers. I like to keep a color and shape bingo game in my puzzles and games center all year long.

Highway Mats for Shapes

Hands-On Learning

If you really want your students to learn shapes, you can provide them with hands-on activities for learning shapes all year long.

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    These road shape mats pictured above are a perfect example of a fun, hands-on learning activity your kids will love!

    Embedding shapes into your units of study is a more effective approach because it will help your kids learn and remember the names of the shapes being taught.

    Owl Pattern Block Mat

    Pattern Blocks

    Another fun way for teaching shapes is to use pattern blocks. These pattern block mats are the perfect shapes activity.

    Your little learners will be practicing shape matching, and they’ll also be flipping and turning the shapes on the mat. Matching, flipping, and turning shapes is the foundation of geometry.

    Printable Geoboard Shape Cards

    Geoboard Shapes

    These geoboard shapes task cards can be used all year long. Not only are they fun for your kids to use, but they’re also great for developing those important fine motor skills.

    Building Shapes with Craft Sticks

    Craft Stick Shapes

    Making shapes with craft sticks is a super fun and inexpensive way to learn shapes! Use these done-for-you craft stick shape cards to create a hands-on shape learning experience your kids will love!

    Play Dough Shape Mats Square

    Play Dough Shapes

    Do your kids love playing with play dough? These play dough shape mats are a great way to introduce shapes to your little learners! They’ll love rolling “snakes” and making shapes on their mats. They’ll also be developing visual discrimination skills by searching for the picture that doesn’t belong and fine motor skills with tracing.

    Teach Shapes in Preschool

    Teaching Shapes

    When teaching your little learners about shapes, remember to talk about how many sides each shape has. Don’t be afraid to use real math language, like sides and vertices. Using real math language will help your students develop important academic vocabulary.

    When you use shape manipulatives in your classroom, your little learners can feel, touch and count the number of sides and vertices each shape has. You can even talk about how a circle doesn’t have any sides or vertices!

    Math Center Tubs on Shelf in Preschool

    Shapes in the Math Center

    You can also incorporate shape activities into your math center throughout the year to reinforce shape recognition.

     

    Shape Books


    More Math Ideas from Pre-K Pages

    Feed the Dog Number Counting Game
    Building a Natural Preschool Math Center
    Teaching Positional Words to Preschoolers
    How to Teach Shapes with road mats
    How to teach sequencing skills
    Preschool Pattern Block Activities
    Learning Shapes with Geoboards
    Measurement Activities for Preschool

    Related Links
    Prekinders

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