20+ Best Teaching Shapes to Preschoolers Activities that You Might Know

Have you ever seen a preschooler point out a triangle or square in their environment? It’s an incredible moment of discovery and excitement as they begin understanding the shapes that make up the world around them.

As a preschool teacher, you constantly look for fun and engaging ways to help your little ones learn the necessary skills. Shape recognition is one of the essential skills to develop at this stage. 

Why shape recognition is imperative for preschoolers

Shape recognition is crucial for preschoolers as it lays the foundation for understanding math and spatial concepts. It also promotes critical thinking and problem-solving skills and the ability to categorize and compare shapes.

Furthermore, shape recognition helps improve fine motor skills such as hand-eye coordination and agility, essential for later writing and drawing activities. 

Preschoolers develop their finger muscles and hand control by manipulating shapes, allowing them to express their creativity more effectively. 

Top games and activities that will help Preschoolers learn about Shapes

Sorting Shapes

This activity is a great way to develop your preschoolers’ fine motor skills, color recognition, and cognitive abilities.

Give your preschoolers a pile of different shapes and ask them to sort them based on their attributes (i.e., by color, size, and number of sides). For instance, they can put all the blue shapes in one pile, all the square shapes in another bank, and so on.

Play dough Shaping

Playing with play dough is a great activity that creates shapes. Moreover, it is another excellent way to teach preschoolers about bodies. To begin with, introduce different forms to the preschoolers and give them the task of creating specific shapes.

Then, allow the preschoolers to use play dough to create different shapes and ask them to identify each one by their name. To make the game fun, the kids can create unique bodies by combining various forms. 

Hopscotching with Shapes

This is a fun way to get your preschoolers interested in a scholarly activity while teaching them about shapes.

Firstly, you have to draw different shapes on the ground with chalk and ask the preschoolers to hop from one form to the next while calling out the names of the conditions.

This activity can also identify the shapes by their color, size, or number of sides. It’s an engaging and fun way to develop their physical abilities while learning about shapes.

Bob the Shape Builder

Engaging preschoolers in building different shapes is a fantastic way to help them develop crucial skills while having fun. By providing the kids with other materials, such as blocks or Legos, you can encourage them to build and identify various shapes.

Not only does this help develop their motor skills and hand-eye coordination, but it also teaches them about different forms. 

As they progress, the preschoolers can combine different shapes to create more complex structures, improving their spatial reasoning and problem-solving abilities.

Scavenger Hunting the Shapes

Turn your classroom or playground into a treasure trove of shapes! Hide different forms in various corners, nooks, and crannies of the area, and have your preschoolers go on a fun-filled hunt to find them.

As they spot a shape, please encourage them to identify it and tell you its name. This will take shape recognition as a fun and exciting activity and get them moving around while learning.

Match The Shapes

You can play this simple yet effective activity with preschoolers with different sets of shape cards. Hand out the shape cards and request your preschoolers to match the shapes with their corresponding cards.

For instance, a triangle card should be compared with a triangle shape. This is a great way to teach them the names of the conditions and what they look like.

Paint your Shapes

Painting is always a fun activity not only for preschoolers but also for adults as well. To do this simple activity, you only need to provide your preschoolers with different shape stencils and have them use paint to fill each shape.

Ensure you let the kids know the names of the conditions they are about to paint. Give the kids the freedom to use different colors to make the output more visually appealing. This activity ensures the kids have fun while learning the shapes’ names and attributes.

Trace the Shapes

This activity requires the teacher to supply the preschoolers with shape templates like circles, squares, triangles, and rectangles.

Then explain how the kids can trace shapes by placing a shape template on a flat surface and using a pencil or crayon to follow the shape’s outline.

This activity is an opportunity to teach them about conditions and their characteristics while encouraging them to personalize their bodies with different colors or patterns.

Songs of Shapes

Singing has always been fun for preschoolers as they learn about new music, tunes, and how their voices will sound with different songs.

There are plenty of varying shape songs available on the internet that you can try out with your preschoolers to help them remember the names of different shapes.

However, you can also make up fun and catchy tunes they will enjoy singing. You can also incorporate actions or dance moves to make it more engaging.

Puzzles

Puzzles are a great way to develop problem-solving skills and shape recognition. Give your preschoolers different shape puzzles and encourage them to match the pieces to create the shapes. This is a fun way to teach them about the attributes of various forms, such as the number of sides.

Shape Collage

Before beginning this activity, you have to give the kids some idea about a collage and how to make it. Then you can go ahead with the training, provide them with materials like paper, stickers, foam shapes, and glue, and encourage them to create a collage using different forms.

The kids can create their unique designs, and while they are making them, they are also learning about the different shapes and their characteristics, like the number of sides and angles.

Memorizing Shapes

This activity teaches them about different shapes and helps improve their memory skills. It involves placing various face-down forms on a flat surface and giving your preschooler time to memorize their location. Then, they must flip over two shapes simultaneously to find a match.

If they succeed, they get to keep the matched shapes and continue until they see all the pairs. It’s a great way to boost their cognitive skills while having fun simultaneously!

Snack time with Shapes

This simple activity requires nothing of you and the preschoolers other than eating the shapes. Different snacks such as crackers, fruits, or cheese create various forms.

Playfully ask your preschoolers to identify the conditions they see and eat them up! This is a fun and tasty way to teach them about shapes.

Shape Math Games

For this activity, you can play different math games that involve shapes, such as counting the number of sides on other forms or finding bodies of a specific size. In addition, you can also use profiles to teach addition and subtraction by using them as counters.

For example, you can ask your child to add two triangles and three squares or subtract two circles from four yards.

Shape Obstacle Course

Create an obstacle course using different shapes you can find in your school and surrounding. For this activity, you must instruct your preschoolers to move through the obstacle course while identifying the conditions they encounter in their race.

This is a fun and engaging way for kids to develop their physical abilities while learning about shapes.

I-Spy with Shapes

We all know the game of I-spy, and we know kids and preschoolers love them the most. So, play a game of I-Spy using different shapes you can find in the classroom or playground.

Then, you can instruct your preschoolers to find and identify the conditions you described while playing the game. This is a great way to develop their observation and listening skills and teach them about shapes.

Shape Bingo

In this game, each kid is given a bingo card with different shapes, and you or the teacher must randomly pick out a form and announce it to the kids. The preschoolers then check their bingo cards to see if they have the announced shape.

If they do, they can mark it off with a marker. The game continues until a player has marked off all the forms on their card and calls out “bingo!” to win the game.

Feel the Shapes with the sensory bin.

This activity involves filling a bin with rice or sand and hiding various shapes inside. As your preschoolers play in the chest, please encourage them to search for and identify the conditions they come across.

Not only is this a fun and engaging activity, but it also helps develop your child’s tactile and sensory skills. They’ll have a blast sifting through the materials, and they’ll be learning about shapes without even realizing it.

Shape Charades

Play a game of charades using different shapes. Encourage your preschoolers to act out the forms without speaking and have their classmates guess the conditions they’re portraying.

This is a fun way to develop their communication and acting skills while teaching them about shapes.

Book of shapes

In this activity, you can give your preschooler a blank book and ask them to fill it with different shapes by drawing, coloring, or painting them.

To ensure that the preschoolers can identify the conditions they are drawing, ask them to write their names beside them. Furthermore, You can also ask them to find shapes in their surroundings, magazines, or newspapers and paste them into the book.