How to Teach a Child Shapes
Teaching shapes to a child is not a difficult thing to do. However, if taught incorrectly it can cause confusion and slow down developmental progress. This does not mean that you have to save lessons on shapes for the kindergarten teacher. Shapes can be taught at home. Here are some tips for teaching your child shapes.
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Instructions
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Read books to your child about shapes. Some titles include "Shapes (Slide and Seek)" by Chuck Murphy, "Mouse Shapes" by Ellen Stoll Walsh and "Three Pigs, One Wolf, Seven Magic Shapes" from Scholastic. These books will make your child interested in recognizing and pointing out shapes.
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Purchase shape-sorting sets and have the child concentrate on matching the correct shape with the correct hole. This will help them distinguish one shape from another. This can start as early as one year to 18 months old.
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Start with one shape at a time, and have the child draw the shape, color the shape, and even draw pictures that include lots of the shape. For example, if you are studying triangles, have the child draw triangle people with stick legs and arms and triangle heads and bodies.
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Once you and your child have drawn and colored the shape, have them spend some time going around the house and finding items that are the same shape. You can play a day-long game if you wish where you will reward the child with trinkets, candies or tickets every time they identify an item that fits their shape. If you are concentrating on circles, they would point out things like jars with round lids, pots, round table tops, flowerpots, clocks and more. When they point out an item to you, trace your finger around the part of the item that coincides with the shape while saying the name of the shape, and have them do the same. You can also have a child cut out pictures in magazines that match the shapes.
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When your child has gone through the exercises of learning different shaped individually, you can test them by tracing different shapes on their back with your finger and having them name it.
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Tips & Warnings
Take your time and go at your child's pace.
If the child become frustrated, put the lessons away for another day.
