What shapes should kids learn and how do you make a lesson to help young learners determine shapes easily?
- By the age of three, teach your child to determine and name such shapes as circles, squares, and triangles. Learn the definitions of round, square, and triangular. Teach your child to determine the shape of different things in pictures and in real life. Match big and small shapes. Make up difficult tasks that include logic elements: "Find and a big yellow circle and a small green triangle". The tasks, even though they seem simple, will demand concentration of all the intellectual sources of a child – and the task will improve his skills.
- When you are confident that your child has successfully learned the elementary shapes, you can continue the lessons and include ovals, rectangles, and trapezoids. Understand that the child will likely confuse the names of the shapes at the beginning – he might call a rectangle a square or a triangle, or a triangle a rectangle. For the preschool child, the key part of the word «square» eclipses other meanings. Emphasize that the triangle is called so because it has THREE angles. You can continue making up the logical tasks: «Choose a big yellow trapezoid and a big orange triangle».
- To determine shapes, mix a group of similar shapes – ovals and circles, squares and rectangles, triangles and trapezoids, place them on a table, and ask your child to place only one type of shape in a bowl, and leave the rest on the table. At the most initial stages, all shapes will be different colors, and the shape of the one type of the same size. To make the task more complicated, mix the colors of the shapes, and then change them by size. Also, try to give your child a task where it is necessary to sort the shapes by color but different in the size and a form
- Spread out two sets of big shapes on the floor. Name the shape and jump on it, let the child to do the same. And now ask him to jump on the same shapes as you did before, but you will say aloud the name of the other shape.
- What shapes should your child know before he starts school?
- By the age of 7, a preschool child should be able to determine three-dimensional figures: a cone, a sphere, and a cube. It is important not to confuse their names with the flat figures: a triangle, a circle, and a square.
- As for the flat figures, acquaint the senior preschool child with a semicircle, a star, a polygon, and a crescent. To differentiate these shapes is very easy, and using them in drawings or a mosaic will enrich the design of the pictures made by the child.
- By the time the child starts school, he should know what a point and a straight line are. To elevate the mind, you can also study the broken line and a curve.
