Engaging Shape Activities for Preschoolers and Kindergarteners
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Learning to recognize shapes is important for every preschooler and kindergarten student. Shape recognition starts the path to building a strong foundation for math skills as a child grows up. Plus, learning to recognize shapes is important because they are everywhere!
From that rectangle-shaped smartphone, to a slice of pizza, to the cute round body of a bunny and so many more, we’re surrounded by shapes. So don’t be a square, and try these fun shape activities for preschoolers and kindergarteners that you and your child will love doing together!
Delve into these hands-on activities, including crafts, games and more, that will have your child learning and recognizing shapes in no time:
1. Play Shape Bingo
How to Play:
You can create your own shape bingo cards by drawing various colored shapes onto a durable piece of paper or cardboard. Alternatively, you can print and use these fun, free shape bingo cards designed by our ABCmouse team.
Our shape bingo cards showcase a variety of shapes, including circles, squares, rectangles, and triangles. We offer three versions to cater to different preferences: a black and white version for those who enjoy coloring, a pre-colored version ready for immediate play, and a unique version featuring objects that represent different shapes.
To play, simply use the provided calling sheet to cut out each shape and place them into an envelope. During gameplay, draw a shape from the envelope, announce it, and have your child locate and mark the corresponding shape on their card. The game is won when your child lines up three shapes in a row—celebrate their victory!
Example:
If you pull a triangle shape from your envelope, your child has to check off a triangle on the bingo board that you created. Keep pulling out shapes that your child has to match on her board until she has three consecutive shapes in row, whether across, down or diagonal.
Benefits of this Activity:
- Playing games like this adds fun to the learning experience. If you’re teaching more than one child at a time, it adds a bit of healthy competition, too.
- By incorporating visual shapes with the words you call out, shape bingo helps build vocabulary and phonemic awareness at the same time.
- The activity is not only educational, but provides a great parent-child bonding experience. Your child has to listen and focus on what you are saying to win the game. And what mom or dad doesn’t like seeing their little one smile in pride once she’s worked hard on achieving something big?
2. Create Popsicle Stick Fun
How to Play:
Draw basic straight-line shapes such as square, rectangle and triangle. Have your child put Elmer’s glue on popsicle sticks (you can buy them online or in craft stores), and place one on each line of the drawn shape. Now your child has an instant picture frame that he can draw inside of.
Example:
Draw a square on the paper. Put glue on one side of four popsicle sticks. Place each stick, glue-side down, on each side of the square. And there you have it! There’s a big canvas inside the square for your child to fill in with drawings, letters or numbers—anything he’d like! This can be done using rectangles and triangles, too.
Benefits of this Activity:
- This tactile activity allows children to touch, feel and see how many sides are needed to create a given shape, thus providing an immersive educational experience.
- Doing crafts such as this helps develop fine motor skills. Spreading glue onto a stick and matching those sticks to lines puts to work those little muscles that will one day help your child write, tie his shoes and zipper his coat.
3. Shape Tracing Fun
How to Play:
Introduce your child to the basics of shape identification with our free printable shape worksheets. You can start by using our Shape Tracing Worksheets, which include simple outlines of 2D shapes like circles, squares, triangles, and rectangles.
Provide your child with a variety of writing utensils like colored pencils, markers or crayons and encourage them to trace these shapes carefully.
Example:
Print out a shape tracing worksheet featuring a triangle. Give your child a crayon and show them how to trace along the dotted lines of the triangle. Once they’ve traced the shape, they can color it in, enhancing their engagement and enjoyment.
Benefits of this Activity:
- Tracing shapes helps children develop fine motor skills and spatial awareness. It’s a tactile way for them to explore the dimensions and boundaries of different shapes, reinforcing their ability to identify and differentiate between them.
- Tracing enhances cognitive development by fostering concentration and focus. As children participate in tracing activities, they learn to adhere to a sequence of steps, thereby cultivating crucial executive function skills.
4. Hop Into Shapes!
How to Play:
Grab some crayons and construction paper or a sketch pad. Have your child draw a picture of an adorable bunny rabbit. Here’s how:
Draw a large horizontal oval (think of an egg on its side) for the body. Draw smaller circles on each of its sides to be the head and tail. Draw tiny horizontal oblong circles on the bottom to be the feet. Draw tall triangles to be the bunny’s ears and tiny rectangles to be the cute little buck teeth. Don’t forget to make straight lines for whiskers!
Example:
Show your child a picture of a plump little bunny to indicate the shapes needed to draw the picture.
Benefits of this Activity:
- The hands-on nature of this creative activity helps reinforce your child’s understanding of basic shapes. Drawing the different parts of the animal gives children practice in shape recognition while fostering their creativity.
- Children utilize their fine motor skills by having to draw shapes of different sizes.
5. Google Cute Shape Songs
How to Play:
This one is great for younger children. And who doesn’t enjoy googling music? Or a good nursery rhyme? Just do a quick search using keywords such as “shape song lyrics for preschoolers” or “easy shape song lyrics,” and you’ll discover lots of musical gems. Sing along with your child, and enjoy a fun way to learn about shapes.
Example:
The Shapes Song by ABCmouse is upbeat, catchy and easy to sing along to!
Benefits of this Activity:
- By singing along and watching the corresponding videos, music helps children recognize and remember what shapes look like easier.
- Looking around the house for shapes that appeared in the song helps reinforce a child’s recognition of the shapes long after the music ended.
6. Go on a Shape Scavenger Hunt
How to Play:
For this one, you’ll need to enjoy being in the great outdoors. Go on a walk with your child and ask her to spot shapes in nature and point to what she’s found. (You can also do this in your backyard if you don’t have a park or natural space nearby.)
Example:
During your outdoor adventure, ask your child to look for anything in nature shaped like a circle. She can look for a small pond, a tree stump…maybe even a little turtle strolling by from afar. You can also look for triangles and four-sided figures. They’re out there in nature if you search hard enough!
Benefits of this Activity:
- A scavenger hunt is an immersive way to help reinforce what a child recently learned. After a traditional lesson about shapes, a scavenger hunt is a great way to put that new-found knowledge into action. It gives children a hands-on way to experience what they are learning at home or in the classroom.
- Scavenger hunts are exciting and provide children with a sense of adventure while helping to build important skills that can be applied as a child grows up, such as critical thinking, goal-setting and attention to detail.
- As they explore, looking up, down and all around, children are incorporating movement into the learning process. This helps with memory and overall understanding of subject matter.
7. Make a Shape Place Mat
How to Play:
You’ll need cardstock paper, construction paper, clear contact paper, Elmer’s glue and scissors. Have your child draw shapes on different colors of construction paper. You or your child will then cut out the shapes and glue them onto a piece of cardstock that is similar in size to a traditional placemat. Apply the contact paper directly over the cardstock. You’ll then have a practical placemat adorned with shapes that your child can look at while she eats!
Example:
Use pink construction paper for squares, yellow for triangles, blue for circles…or just mix it up in a variety of shapes and colors.
Benefits of this Activity:
- Like many craft activities, it provides hands-on learning that engages children and fosters creativity.
- Children utilize their fine motor skills by having to draw shapes, cut paper and glue items together.
8. Shape-Tac-Toe
How to Play:
Forget X’s and O’s. Change up the classic game of tic-tac-toe by using fun shapes instead. Plus, it’s a game that’s easy enough to play anywhere, whether you’re at home, waiting for a doctor’s appointment or even while having a picnic in the park.
Example:
Draw the traditional tic-tac-toe board in the hashtag (pound) design. Instruct your child to choose a shape, you choose another and whoever gets three of their shapes across, down or diagonal wins.
Benefits of this Activity:
- Playing games like tic-tac-toe helps improve concentration and focus.
- Children see and create patterns, which helps develop visual processing and working memory functions.
9. Make a Square Puzzle
How to Play:
Make a square puzzle composed of different shapes. Here’s how:
Draw shapes on a piece of paper (any color). Be sure to use the entire piece of paper. Cut out the shapes. Then, instruct your child to use the shapes as puzzle pieces to put the piece of paper back together again.
Example:
Draw a square. Next to it, draw two triangles that are flush to the side of the square. The idea is to keep the shapes symmetrical so everything fits back together to form the piece of paper easily, like putting together a puzzle. (Note: It’s easier to stick with four-sided shapes and triangles for this activity.)
Benefits of this Activity:
- Helps children develop hand-eye coordination and visualization.
- Children have to focus and strategize, thus improving concentration while developing a good foundation for problem-solving skills.
- Reinforces shape recognition.
10. Shape Coloring Pages
How to Play:
Take advantage of our extensive collection of Shape Coloring Pages. Ranging from circles and squares to stars and hearts, each coloring sheet offers a unique way to explore different objects and shapes.
Example:
Select a triangle coloring page that includes various sizes and styles of triangles. Guide your child to trace and color each triangle. Discuss the properties of the shape, such as the number of sides and points, helping them to recognize triangles in everyday objects and environments.
Benefits of this Activity:
- Coloring shapes keeps children engaged and interested.
- Tracing and coloring enhance children’s fine motor skills.
- This activity helps build foundational math skills in geometry by making abstract concepts tangible.
ABCmouse Shape Games & Activities
For more interactive and engaging shape activities, check out ABCmouse.com. The ABCmouse early learning educational app offers a wide range of games and activities designed to help young children learn and master shape recognition.
Get started with the ABCmouse app today and watch your child work to grow their letter sound skills in a fun and interactive way!
