Teaching about 2D and 3D shapes is so much fun! I feel like it is one of the math units that my students always enjoy the most, because they can really relate to it. Shapes are everywhere! And there are so many fun activities you can do to teach your students about shapes.
Shape Attributes
Part of the kindergarten standards, is not just to learn the names of shapes, but also their attributes. I like to introduce one shape at a time, and we talk about it’s name, if it’s 2D (flat) or 3D (solid). We also discuss how many sides or faces and edges and how many vertices it has. It’s also a great time to talk about where we see these shapes in real life. As we learn about each shape, we create anchor charts together that students can then refer back to throughout our shape unit.
Books About Shapes
As with all skills that I teach, I love to use read alouds that connect with what we are learning about. I find that it helps students engage with the learning in a different, relatable way to them.
When learning shape names, I always read a basic book such as “Shapes“. “When A Line Bends…A Shape Begins” is great for talking about real-life objects that are different shapes. And, “Mouse Shapes” does a wonderful job showing how you can put shapes together to make things, such as a square and a triangle make a house.
There are also some very cute books that incorporate shapes into the storyline. For 2D shapes, I love “Tangled” and for 3D shapes, I love “Make A Wish, Albert!“.
2D Shape Pizza Craft
Shape pizzas are always one of my favorite crafts of the year! Students get to make their own pizza using different shaped toppings. They glue the toppings on to their pizza and then count how many of each shape they used. I love to make it even more fun by reading “Pete the Cat and the Perfect Pizza Party” and turning it into our own pizza party. The kids get to wear chef hats as they make their pizzas, and they love it!
2D & 3D Shape Centers
After they learn names and attributes, students needs lots of hands-on practice in order to really master shapes. Centers are a great way to work on vocabulary, building shapes, finding shapes in real life, etc. If you want to learn more about how I run centers in my classroom, you can read about them HERE!
Shape Snack
At the end of our shape unit, I always end with a shape snack activity. This is always a huge hit! I give my students a baggie of snacks that are different shapes and a shape sorting mat. They have to sort all of their snack items by their shape before they can eat them. You can use any items you want, but I use…Cheerios for circles, Doritos for triangles, alphabet cookies for squares, crackers for rectangles, oyster crackers for hexagons, Kix cereal for spheres, Bugles for cones, cheese for cubes, and marshmallows for cylinders.
Make sure you grab the FREE shape sorting mat!
Other Shape Activities
There are so many fun ways to work on shapes! Math the Room is a center that I always have in my room, so I love to tie shapes into this. Students find the shape cards, count how many there are, and record the number. Shape BINGO is also a great way to review shapes. And who doesn’t love BINGO?
