Teaching Toddlers Shapes Through Play

Shapes can be so much fun. They can be found everywhere from buildings, to things we eat, to signs we see on the street. So take advantage of these moments while you are with your toddler. Share the things you are seeing and have fun. Learning shapes is the first step towards learning math skills, which we know are very important skills to have. So whether you are raising the next Frank Lloyd Wright, Einstein or even Ms. Frizzle start them out with some fun purposeful play with shapes.

Teaching Toddlers Shapes

We used our Geometric shaped blocks from Learning Resources with the shape pack from 1+1+1=1 for this wonderful lesson.

Guidecraft rainbow blocks are the best blocks ever. We have 2 sets and they get played with all of the time. I have found so many ways to teach with them through play. We’ve used them for shape learning here. They helped with our amazing color learning activities and I’ve even used them with the older boys for art. Where we explored color mixing (that was really cool). So as you can see we are a big fan of these blocks.

Reggio Inspired activities using the shadows in the room. I’ve found children love to incorporate natural light and shadows into their play. It is fascinating to watch how they explore and learn on their own.

Block play days! Get out all of your blocks and just let the children build. They are using many different shapes and having a fun hands on learning experience. You can also easily introduce pattern making with the blocks, start easy using 2 different shapes for instance an A B pattern with circles and squares(circle/square/circle/square). You can gradually add shapes and different patterns as they master them.

This shape activity I put together using 1+1+1=1 shape pack. I made the clothespins to match, this is great for fine motor skills and visual recognition.