Shape Explorers

Become a shape explorer and use the Space Racers^TM “Shape Cards” to search for shapes in your home and community.

Learning Goals:

This activity is designed to help children:

• Recognize, identify and name different shapes.
• Identify different shapes in the objects that they see in their daily lives.

Materials:

• Shape Cards activity sheet
• For the shape book: Crayons, scissors, a stapler, and tape or string.

Directions:

Print out the “Shape Cards” activity sheet. Discuss each shape with your child, pointing to and saying its name. Discuss the similarities and differences between the shapes. (Point out the different number of sides the shapes have. Find all the shapes that have four sides. Find all the shapes that are round.) 

Try one or all of the activities below: 

Shape Scavenger Hunt

1. Choose one of the shapes on the “Shape Cards” activity sheet and try to find things that have that shape in your home, outdoors, at school, or anywhere else you go during the day.
2. Another day, choose another shape and try to find that shape throughout the day.
3. Repeat this activity until you have searched for all the shapes.

Shape Travel Bingo

1. Take the “Shape Cards” activity sheet with you and your family as you travel throughout the day.
2. When you see a shape featured on the sheet, shout it out: “I see a circle.” See if you can find each shape on the sheet. See how many examples you can find of each shape.
3. Do this activity as you watch the Space Racers^TM episode “A Simple Re-Quest” and call out the shapes you see.

Shape Book

1. Cut out each shape on the “Shape Cards” activity sheet and glue each one onto a separate piece of paper.
2. On each page, draw your own versions of the featured shape. If you have stickers or pictures of shapes, add those too.
3. Optional: Create pages with shapes not featured on the “Shape Cards,” highlighting a different shape on each page.
4. On a separate sheet of paper, create a cover for the book, with a title like “My Book of Shapes.” Have your child draw shapes on the cover.
5. Place the cover on top of the pages and staple, tape, or tie all the pages together. (To tie the pages, punch a hole on the left side of each page, pull a string through all the pages, and tie a knot.)
6. Have fun reading the book and looking at and saying the names of all the shapes with your child.