Simple Shape Activities for Preschoolers at Home

Shapes are one of the first early math concepts children learn. Parents often start teaching this concept instinctively, by pointing out shapes in everyday conversations with comments like, ‘Your cracker is a circle.”

First children learn to recognize the name of each shape by associating it with the way it looks. Eventually, they learn to identify the shape and name it themselves.

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Simple Shape Activities for Preschoolers at Home

This collection of simple shape activities for preschoolers at home will give you lots of ideas for helping to teach your little one both of these concepts.

•  Shape recognition – you name the shape and they find it. This is how young children learn the shape names. For example, “Do you see a square on this wall?”
• Shape identification – you show them a shape and they can name it. For example, “What shape is this?”

Basic Shapes for Kids

What shapes do you teach preschoolers and in what order?

Level 1 – When teaching shapes to preschoolers it’s best to start with basic common 2D shapes children encounter most often. They should be able to recognize and identify these shapes in a variety of ways – in different sizes and colors and with other features ( not just an isolated picture) For example, they should be able to see that a tire on a truck is a circle or that a refrigerator door is a rectangle. You should start with one shape at a time. Maybe have a shape of the week. Here are the shapes you’ll want to start with:

• circle
• star
• heart
• square
• triangle

Download Preschool Shapes – Level 1 Chart

Level 2 – Next move on to:

• rectangle
• diamond
• octagon
  • Why octagons at this level? Because octagons are the shape of stop signs which children see often AND… because it’s an impressive word for little tikes, so they love saying it! – lol
• oval

Download Preschool Shape – Level 2 Chart

Level 3 Advanced– This level is not necessary for preschoolers to know at this age. But for older preschoolers or early elementary children who have mastered the basics and want to learn more, the next level would be these more advanced 2- D shapes and simple 3-D shapes:

2-D Shapes

• hexagon
• pentagon
• rhombus
• trapezoid

3-D Shapes

• cylinder
• cube
• cone
• sphere

Download Preschool Shapes – Level 3

Preschool Shape Activities

These hands-on activities are sure to get your little learner excited about shapes!

You don’t need to buy a lot of resources to teach shapes. Shapes are everywhere, so there are plenty of fun learning opportunities just with everyday objects you already have on hand like blocks and toys.

You can also take advantage of teachable moments when you’re out and about. Find shapes on buildings, at the park, and in stores. Street signs are a great teaching tool. They come in almost all basic shapes – circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, and diamonds.

Have FUN!

1. Go on a Shape Hunt

Go on a shape hunt around the house, outside, or while you’re out around town, and ask your child to look for specific shapes one shape at a time, using real objects  – “Let’s find rectangles!”

2. Play a Memory Game

Using shape cards, put down four in front of your child. Together go over what the shapes are in the order they are laid out. Have your child shut their eyes (or turn around) as you take one of the cards away. Have them then guess which shape is missing. You can add more cards for your child to remember if four is too easy, but be careful, not too many. You want to challenge them not frustrate them. As an alternative version of this game, instead of taking a card away you could add a card and see if they can tell you what was added.

3. Trace Shapes

Tracing is a lot of fun! Give your child different shaped items they can trace. Stencils are fun too. You can make your own out of old cereal boxes.

4. Draw Shapes

• Draw shapes in a variety of different ways.
  • Draw with crayons, markers, or colored pencils
  • Draw with paintbrushes using paint or just water. Painting with water is a lot of fun on warm days. Let your child draw shapes with water on the sidewalk and watch them evaporate.
  • Draw shapes with chalk on the sidewalk, a chalkboard or black construction paper.
  • Draw in the sand with a stick or their finger.

5. Make Their Own Shapes

Have your child make their own shapes out of things like sticks, blocks, craft sticks, crayons, or even their hands.

6. Look for Shapes on Road Signs

Look for shapes on road signs and then point them out such as a stop sign that has 8 sides and is called an octagon. 

Use cookie cutters to cut shapes into foods like sandwiches or when playing with playdough or in the sand

8. Collect and Sort Shapes

Make shapes on the floor with painter’s tape or draw shapes on construction paper. Have your child collect different shaped items such as wooden blocks or real objects around the house, and then sort them onto the matching shape.

9. Feel the Shape

Put a few different shaped items into a paper bag. You could use things like everyday objects, Magna Tiles, or wooden blocks. Let your child reach into the bag without looking and feel a shape he can identify. Have him pull it out to see if they’re right.

You could also play this by telling your child what shape to find.

10. Explore Shapes with Food

Talk about the shapes of food your child enjoys. So many foods come in basic shapes naturally but you can also use cookie cutters to make edible fun snacks out of sandwiches, fruit, or vegetables.

11. Make simple patterns with shapes.

Patterns are another early math skill preschoolers enjoy. Check out Math Pattern Activities for Preschoolers for lots of learning fun ideas. 

12. Make Shapes with Playdough

Have children make shapes with playdough using their hands and playdough tools or cut shapes out with cookie cutters.

13. Use a Geoboard to Make Shapes.

A geoboard is a math manipulative children can use to make shapes using rubber bands. These boards can be made with a wooden board and nails. If you’re handy with a hammer Sarah at Little Bins for Little Hands shows you exactly how to create one for your child.

If you’d prefer to buy an already-made geoboard you can find them from places like Amazon or Etsy. Over the years, in both the classroom and at home I have used both the plastic version and the wooden version. I have found the wooden ones tend to last a lot longer than the cheaper plastic ones.

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Build Vocabulary as You Explore Shapes

1. Describing Shapes

Make an effort to be descriptive when exploring new shapes.  It’s a great way to build language skills and help your little one develop a richer vocabulary.

For instance, as opposed to just saying, ” Do you see the rectangle box?” share the properties of the shape by saying things like,

” Do you see the rectangle block? It has 4 corners. One, two, three, four. Oh, and look it has four sides. One, two, three, four. Two short sides. One, two. And two long sides. One, two.”

” I wonder if we turn it over if it’ll still be a rectangle? [flip box over] Is it still a rectangle? Let’s see. Does it still have four corners? One, two, three, four. Yes! how about four sides? One, two, three, four. Two long. Two short. Yes! It’s still a rectangle”

2. Have Your Child Explain How to Draw a Shape

Using a chalkboard have your child tell you how to draw a particular shape. Start at the top and ask them what you do next. You can do this on a piece of paper but a chalkboard is easier to erase.

Encourage your child to use descriptive words. For instance, if you are working on a triangle and your child tells you the next step is to draw a straight line, just draw a straight line.

After which they will probably squeal with giddy excitement something like,” No! Not like that! It has to go like this.” And they’ll make sideways motions with their hand.

You’ll then, erase that line and clarify, ” Oh, you mean a slanted line. Like this?” as you draw the line the right way.

The next time they ask you to draw a line you can ask, “A straight line to a slanted line?”

3. Explore Directional Words With Shapes

Give your child different shape blocks. Lay one block down. Let’s say it’s a rectangle. Then ask your child to put their blocks down using prompts like these:

• Can you put a square on the rectangle?
• Can you put a square next to the rectangle?
• Can you put two squares under the rectangle?

Here’s a few more positional words you can use:

• above
• behind
• beside
• between
• close to
• far away from
• in front of
• next to
• on
• under

Shape Crafts for Preschoolers

1. Shape Collage

Make a shape collage out of different shaped pieces of construction paper.

2. Bottle Cap Circles 

Paint circles using the bottle cap on an empty water bottle dipped in different colors.

3. Paint with Shaped Cookie Cutters Use a shaped cookie cutter, like stars and hearts, dipped in paint. You could use different sizes for a fun effect.

4. Circle from a Cup Kids will have fun with this project as they create cool designs with circles.

More Resources for Teaching Shapes

1. Shape Books for Preschoolers

Picture books are a great way to introduce new concepts or reinforce learning concepts already taught. You can use just about any book to point out shapes. If you are looking for books specifically about shapes check out this Ultimate List of Books about Shapes for Preschoolers.

2. Take a peek at pins I’ve saved over the years to my Shape Activities for Preschoolers board on Pinterest for a lot more shape activity ideas!

3. YouTube has some get videos that help reinfoce teaching shapes.

If you’ve enjoyed these shapes activities,  be sure to check out more fun Preschool Activities :

• 5 Senses Preschool Activities
• Counting Activities for Preschoolers
• Alphabet Activities for Preschoolers

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