One key skill students learn in kindergarten is how to identify shapes. These printable kindergarten shapes worksheets and activities will help your students learn everything they need to know about two and three-dimensional shapes this year!
It's so much fun teaching kindergarten students about shapes! Once they start to learn various shapes, they see them everywhere. They'll quickly recognize the pentagons on their soccer balls and the squares and rectangles all over the classroom. It's lovely to see them apply this new learning in real life!
Kindergarten students typically learn about both two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes, although that can vary depending on the standards in your state or country. In this post, I'm sharing resources to teach both types of shapes so you can easily find whichever materials you need.
Teach Basic Shapes Quickly & Effectively
If you want to simplify your lessons and help your students learn their shapes faster than ever before, you need to join The Hive!
I've created 2 mini units, each with 5 days of lesson plans to teach 2D Spatial Structure from start to finish, including learning targets, success criteria, and fun, interactive songs, games, and activities to teach young kids about plane shapes.
There are also video lessons and various activities available on The Hive to teach and reinforce this skill, plus digital learning tools!
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2D Printable Kindergarten Shapes
For two-dimensional shapes, kindergarten kids need to know a variety of basic geometric shapes:
- Circle
- Square
- Rectangle
- Triangle
- Pentagon
- Hexagon
- Octagon
There are many ways to teach shape recognition. We typically start by teaching the number of sides and helping students find these shapes in the real world. These are often called flat shapes or plane shapes as they are two-dimensional and only exist on a flat plane. There are a bunch of 2D Shapes Kindergarten worksheets and math activities available in my shop or in The Hive to do just that!
2D Shapes Sorting Mats
These printable sorting mats include a variety of real-life images featuring different shapes, which students then sort onto the right mat. This is a great way to practice fine motor skills and shape names at the same time!
2D Shapes in Real Life Digital Slides
These slides are such a great resource! Like any new skill, it's best to connect to what students already know. When your students start to recognise the basic shapes in the real world, they'll start to see them everywhere they go!
2D Shape Clip Cards
These simple task cards are a fun way to practice shape recognition. Your students will need to find the matching shape from an image in a bank of images. This helps them get comfortable with the new shapes, and when they're ready, you can incorporate the names or spellings of the shapes in the other activities.
These can be used as preschool shape worksheets, or you can incorporate them in kindergarten or 1st Grade lesson plans as needed.
2-Dimensional Shapes Playdough Mats
This hands-on resource will have students practice spelling each shape word, creating the shape out of playdough, and practicing their shape identification skills, too.
I Spy Mats
Give your students magnifying glasses, and have them go on a shape hunt on these 2 D shapes worksheets to find specific shapes hidden within everyday objects. They're great for small groups or independent work!
Roll a 2D Shape
These free printable shapes worksheets are a great way to help your young learners get extra practice naming and identifying a variety of shapes. This is great for early finishers or as a refresher for first graders!
2D Shapes in Real Life
Use these worksheets to search for different 2D objects in real life.
More 2D Shape Activities
This is just the start! There are even more shape activities on The Hive, including:
- 2D Shape Songs - sing to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell
- Groups of Shapes Sorting Activities
- Groups & Pattern Shape Slides
- Equal or Unequal Shape Group Slides
See all of the 2D Shapes Kindergarten Math Worksheets on the Hive!
3D Object Activities for Kindergarten
Once you're ready to teach your students about 3D objects, I've created two 5-day lesson plans to introduce these prisms, pyramids, and more. Each set is differentiated to make it easy to tailor your instruction to your students' specific needs.
For three-dimensional shapes, kindergarteners typically learn the following shapes:
- Cube
- Sphere
- Cylinder
- Cone
- Pyramid
- Rectangular Prism
- Triangular Prism
There are lots of matching activities on The Hive that use the same activity as the 2D shapes but with three-dimensional objects instead. This is a great way to help young students learn these more complex shapes quickly and effectively!
Ready to get started? Visit The Hive to get all of these kindergarten geometry lesson plans, activities, videos, apps, and more all in one place!
More 3D Object Activities
Once your students have a grasp on this concept, you can stretch or consolidate their thinking with the following activities.
3D Object Tracing Shapes Worksheets
Students will practise tracing the dotted lines to form these more complex, three-dimensional shapes. This can be a challenging skill, especially for a kindergarten child, so these templates are especially helpful.
3D Object Printables
These worksheets make it easy to collect information about the different shapes in one place, including identifying the shape, spelling the name, and describing the features of the shape. There are several levels to help your students scale and stretch their knowledge a little at a time!
3D Shape Roll, Stack, Slide
Reinforce the properties of three-dimensional shapes with these worksheets! Students will need to circle shapes that will roll, stack, or slide. It can be helpful to pair these with physical models to test this out!
More Kindergarten Posts
Did these kindergarten printable shapes activities help? Be sure to check out these other kindergarten resources on the blog!