7 Games That Teach Your Preschooler Shapes

Soon the day will come when your tot’s ready to take what she’s gleaned from puttering with her shape sorter and apply it to the wide world. (Muffins are circles! Books are rectangles!) Help foster your child’s newfound interest with these fun shape activities and games, which turn learning the concepts of squares and triangles into low-pressure play.

For a mind-and-body morning warm-up that doubles as a mommy-and-me activity, play this stimulating shape-smart game. Show your munchkin how to make a circle by holding his arms like a bowl in front of him. A little extra stretch turns his circle into an oval.

To form a triangle, have him bend over and try to touch the ground a few inches in front of his feet (like a downward dog). You can even rename the classic jumping jack: It’s a star!

Not remotely close to the holidays? No matter. Making ornaments is a blast anytime of year, and it’s a perfect activity for teaching shapes. Just cut out a few basic triangles, rectangles, squares, circles, hearts and stars from colored construction paper, then encourage your toddler to decorate them with markers, crayons, stickers and glitter.

Punch a hole in each shape, thread a small piece of yarn or ribbon through it, and then trim one of your backyard trees. Afterward, kick back with a snack (there are shapes to identify there too) and talk to your sweetie about which shapes are her faves.

There are plenty of excellent board books about shapes, but a handmade book created for (and with) your child packs a bigger educational punch.

For this DIY project, cut out 4-by-6-inch pieces of cardstock (just the right size to slip into a wallet-size photo album), and decorate each one with a different shape. For circles, try happy-face stickers, glue-on snaps or oversize buttons (anything smaller than 1.75 inches in diameter is a choking hazard); squares can be box tops and magazine pictures.

If you like, mix in photos of real-life shapes around the house, like a shot of your circular kiddie pool, a diamond-shaped cookie cutter or the rectangular window in your little one’s bedroom.

Another way to boost your shape-learning arsenal: Explore textures. Experiencing different tactile sensations can help children learn — one reason Montessori preschools encourage students to practice the alphabet with letters cut from sandpaper.

For a fun shapes activity, fashion circles and squares from different materials, including corrugated cardboard, fabric and sandpaper. Running his hands around an actual 3D object will give your munchkin more data for figuring out what makes a shape a shape — the roundness of a circle, for instance, or the sharp corners of a square.

Old-fashioned bingo requires knowing your letters and numbers, a skill your little one won’t master for a few years yet. But he can play an easy all-shapes game, perfect for beginners. Just draw a 3-inch-by-3-inch square grid, sketching a different shape (circle, oval, square, rectangle, heart, star, triangle, diamond or moon) in each square.

Draw corresponding shapes on small pieces of paper or index cards and toss them into a bowl, then draw out the slips of paper and help your little one find the match on his bingo sheet. When he gets three shapes in a row, he wins!

The prize: The winner gets to be the bingo caller for the next round. Trying to name the shapes as he pulls them out of the bowl is a lesson in itself.

With a few 20-inch lengths of yarn, your tot can make a gallery of her own shapes. For this learning activity, help her fashion a circle, a square, a triangle and a rectangle by arranging the pieces of yarn on a tabletop. Then draw a line of glue in the right shape on a piece of cardstock and help your cutie pat the yarn into place.

If you’re feeling crafty, the two of you can create a whole wall of homemade shapes for the playroom.

Your budding artist may not have Rembrandt-like finesse (yet), but he’s not too young for his first art lesson: how to turn shapes into other objects. Even the pros start their drawings as a series of shapes, assembling a person from a few circles and rectangles.

For this shapes activity, put out a supply of paper circles, rectangles, squares and triangles that you’ve cut out, plus a glue stick or a small pot of washable glue, and help your preschooler assemble anything from people to animals to cars.