Teaching children about shapes doesn’t have to boring. In fact, there are hundreds of super fun activities to help your children understand shapes and truly enjoy the process. If you want your children to learn their shapes and know them really well, any of these activities will work and they will also have a good time!
- Make Shapes Out of Toothpicks
Toothpicks are useful for many things. One of those things is making shapes so your children can commit them to memory!
All you need for this little art project is a bunch of toothpicks, play dough, or marshmallows.
As you teach your children to put together different shapes, make sure you teach them about sides and vertices as a part of the process.
Make them count the sides of each shape out loud and say the name for each one.
For younger kids print/ draw some shapes on a page and laminate it. Get your kids to place toothpicks over the shape to create it for themselves.
- Shape Writing Tray
Sand writing trays can be used for many fun things, and this is one of them.
All you need to do is prepare flashcards with different shapes, and then have your children draw the shapes in the sand on the writing tray that you’ve prepared for them.
To make things a bit more attractive, you can use colored sand! You don’t have to purchase a sand writing tray, you can make your own at home.
- Make Shapes Out of Play Dough
Children love play dough a lot, and you can take advantage of that to get them to learn their shapes more effectively.
All you need to do is take play dough and flatten it on a surface. It can be a tray, a plastic plate, whatever you have available.
Then, have your children trace different shapes onto the play dough with a plastic knife or even their fingers.
Children can also form the various shapes out of the playdough.
Remember to: have your children count each side and say the name of the shapes as well.
- Shape Printing
Shape printing is a lot of fun! All you need is wooden block shapes, paints in different colors, and paper or cardboard.
If you don’t have wooden blocks in as many shapes as you need, then buy a couple of sponges and cut them into the shapes you need or carve a potato into the shape you need.
Then, your children can have fun making shape prints by dipping the shape into paint and pushing them onto paper or card. You can also teach them how to create images using different shapes.
The printed cards can be used as letters to friends and family or for birthdays or special occasions. Sheets of printed paper can be used to wrap gifts or boxes.
- Shape Collages
Collages are amazing and they allow your children to express their creativity in a different way.
All you need is a bunch of shapes cut out of construction paper or card. Make sure each shape is in a different colour, so your children can easily identify each shape by colour as well as shape.
Then, give them card stock to work as a canvas and help them make their collage by gluing the shapes however to form a picture.
The point of this activity is to help children understand how shapes can be used in different ways to create images and scenes.
iKids offer a vast number of products that can assist your little ones in learning their shapes. These products include but are not limited to:
- The Geometric Shape Paring Block
- Blackboard Wall Stickers
- Multifunctional Chalk
- Mountain Block
- Baby Food Silicone Mold Mini Shape
As you can see, there are many ways to get children to play with shapes so that the learning process is easier and fun!
