If your children are having a bit of a hard time learning about shapes, there are many things you can do to help. For one, you can set up shape-themed or shape-focused activities for them. This way, they can have fun and learn at the same time!
1. Memory Game with Shapes
Memory games are fun and just challenging enough for kids to learn a thing or two while they’re playing. To set this up, all you need are some shapes. Let’s say you have a circle, a triangle and a square. Put them on a tray, show it to your children and give them a minute to try and memorize the shapes that they see.
Then, cover the tray and put it away. Take one of the shapes while your children are not watching, and then put it back in front of them. Uncover the tray and have them figure out which shape is missing. You can do this several times and eventually, the names of the shapes will stick.
Add more shapes for a more challenging game.
2. Shape Collages
Another great way to inspire your children to become more familiar with shapes is to make collages with them!
Just provide a large number of cutouts of the shapes you want them to learn, make them different sizes for some variation. Then provide a large sheet of cardboard where they can put together their collage and give them enough glue and glitter to create a fun, creative collage.
It’s best to make the cutouts with construction paper of different colours and textures, so they have different options to play with.
3. Shape Snacks
You can teach your children about shapes, with food! That’s right. Cooking with children is not just super fun, it can be educational in many different ways.
Plus, it’s a bonding experience you can have every single day. If you make a habit of it, your children will appreciate and experience food in a different way.
For this activity, you’ll be making snacks with your children. The trick is to make snacks in the shapes they’re learning. For squares, you can have your children help you spread cheese, jam or peanut butter on cream crackers. For circles, you can cut pieces of bread into circles with cookie cutters and then make sandwiches. For triangles, you can make peanut butter sandwiches and cut them diagonally. Literally there is an endless amount of shapes that can be discovered with food.
4. Shape Spotting
When you are out and about, see who can spot the most shapes in our everyday lives, be sure to say the shape and that the object looks like the shape in question. This will inspire them to look for shapes all around them, it can be a great way to pass time if you are waiting for an appointment or if you are stuck in traffic. We also have some fun blocks that can inspire shape recognition.
5. Shape Book
This is another great activity for children to learn about shapes. All you need to do is make a book for your child. Just staple together 4 pieces of construction paper of different colours and label each piece of paper with the name of a shape. Then get a bunch of magazines ready and have your children find pictures of the shapes to fill in the pages of their book. If they’re old enough to cut the images up themselves, let them do it. If not, cut them up yourself and allow them to glue the pictures to their shape book.
Learning about shapes and how they fit into the world is a wonderful pre-maths skill. We hope that you will have fun learning about shapes with your children.