Learning Activity: Shape Sorting for Preschoolers

Shape sorting. A good review for Henry before school starts!

This was one of those non-planned activities though. The boys had been playing with the ABC and square foam mats and I was sorting through some of my crafty items in my cupboard.

I came across these poster shapes that I got from CraftProjectIdeas.

I hadn’t come up with any cool activity to do with them in my head yet, so I just got them out to see what we could do with them.

With the foam mats in place, Henry just began sorting through the shapes.

Placing certain shapes on each foam mat.

He had a system.

He knew which shape went where [and he had a reason].

Blue dog joined in too. Henry helped him ‘hold’ a shape and find its place on the mat.

He laid the shapes out to compare them.

There were some that were pretty similar to each other.

Henry even counted a few of the shapes to see how many he had of each as he was sorting through them.

Use what you got!

You could do the same with cut out pieces of construction paper. Or foam shapes too would work. We just happened to have these poster ones that came in handy.

It could made easy with simple squares, circles and triangles. Or make some funky shapes [but make sure they match!] to make it harder. Stars are always a favorite for my kids.

Or you could sort blocks by size and shape, too like we did before!

What shape does your preschooler know
that surprises you?

Henry knew an octagon very early. Thanks to the STOP sign.

Henry is 4 years old.