Look at this Find the Shapes activity – it’s amazing!
Who doesn’t love a good search? The hunt, the find – the excitement! My toddler was all about searching for shapes in this super easy Find the Shapes math activity.
Shapes are an important part of math and toddlers love learning about them. This activity focuses on finding and identifying shapes.
Wondering how I teach my child? Check out Playing Preschool: my at-home activities curriculum.
Setting up Find the Shapes was almost too easy!
This math activity was so easy to set up – and my 3-year-old loved it. It was the perfect way to spend some time together and give her some time practicing her shapes.
Materials:
(this list contains affiliate links. Read more about these links in my disclosure policy.)
- Butcher paper (I love having this supply!)
- Giant Sharpie marker
- Crayons
I rolled out the butcher paper and taped it to the wall. I always like giving my daughter the chance to work on a vertical surface – it’s super important for muscle development.
On the paper, I drew simple 2-dimensional shapes: squares, triangles, circles, and a few diamonds (rhombuses) just for fun.
First, we talked about attributes
With any shapes activity – we start by reviewing shapes and their attributes. I picked one drawing of each shape and we talked about it.
For example: A square has 4 sides and 4 points. A triangle has 3 sides and 3 points.
Then I gave her a single crayon and started her on her hunt!
My 3- year-old had the best time!
I modeled this activity off a Find Your Name activity from Days with Grey – I just substituted names for shapes.
I told her things like “Color all the squares purple” and off she’d go coloring all the circles.
This kept her occupied for so long!
A quick tip on shapes
It’s super important to vary the size of shapes so your kiddo is able to demonstrate an ability to recognize shapes in any form. We want them to understand why a circle is a circle, without size or color having any weight or merit on shapes identification.
I even put different types of triangles into this activity just for a little extra fun.
My daughter was so proud!
We left Find the Shapes hanging on our wall for a few days and she was beaming to show anyone who came over. This was a big step in learning shapes for her and I couldn’t help but share in her pride.
When will you try this shapes activity with your kids?
Subscribe to my free newsletter and I’ll send you “35 Easy Toddler Activities to Break Up the Day!”
Anastasia Nekoz says
Thanks for your amazing work, Susie! These activities have really transformed how we use our “quiet time” in the middle of the day. This one is nice and simple and I plan to give it a whirl this week with my 3.5yo.
One note I have that I intend to use: let’s show these shapes rotated in even more ways. I say this, having taught middle school and high school math for years and having come across far too many students who are convinced that a square that’s rotated 45 degrees (and “balancing” on one of its corners) is a rhombus or a diamond, having almost never seen it in any way other than plopped on one of its sides. With right triangles, my students might have been exposed to them “upside down” (assuming the “standard” orientation is for them to stand on one of their perpendicular legs) but never standing on their diagonal hypotenuse side.
So to train the concept of conservation of attributes, we want to really go all out in rotating the basic shapes, especially the squares, rectangles, and right triangles, all of which are almost always shown with their right angles “sitting” on an imaginary horizontal line. (I should add that I do this with my 3.5yo and it’s not “too much” in any way, she gets it quite intuitively.)