Teaching shapes to young children can be a challenge. 2D shapes tend to be easier and children are more familiar with them; however, 3D shapes are fun to teach because they’re hands on and make up our world. Below I am sharing a quick and easy 3D Shape Activity for Kindergarten and Preschool.
After doing several 3D shape activities in our classroom, we had a short period of time left to fill before the end of the day and I did this game with my students. They loved it, so I’m sharing it with you here.
You don’t need many materials for this activity and it’s a great way to encourage children to use math language as they describe various 3D shapes.
So get a mystery bag of 3D shapes ready for this whole group, or small group lesson!
For more hands-on and free math activities and worksheets for young children, check out Shape Sorting Activity for Preschool using a repurposed yoga mat and 30+ Free Kindergarten Math Worksheets.
Shape Activity for Kindergarten Materials
If you teach math, then you probably already have the materials for this activity on hand. You will need:
- 3D Wooden Shapes
- Large Bag or Box to hold the Shapes
Place the shapes into the bag and seal it. You can place as many, or as few of the shapes as you wish. You can also consider only including shapes that your children are familiar with and you would expect them to recognize.
For example, our set of wooden shapes included shapes such as hemispheres, but my students had not been taught about this shape during our unit. I therefore didn’t include the shape. Add various prisms and pyramids depending what your teaching expectations are.
You can also include more than one of each of the shapes.
Shape Activity for Kindergarten
I did this activity as a whole group lesson. Have one student come to the front of the room and put their hand into the bag. Next, the child will hold, and feel one of the shapes without looking at it.
The child then used math words to describe the shape they feel in their hand. For example, for a pyramid they may say that they feel one apex on their shape. They may also let their peers know that the faces are all triangular and flat.
The other children then start guessing what shape they believe they’re holding in their hand. If someone guesses it correctly, they then get to choose the next shape. The other player shows the shape in their hand to the group.
Keep going until all of the shapes in the mystery bag have been chosen and identified.
Shape Activity for Kindergarten
Extension Ideas
There are countless variations of this activity that you can try with your class.
One small variation, is instead of using wooden 3D shapes, try using various objects from around the room that are the specific shapes. Therefore, instead of a wooden sphere children place a small ball inside their bag.
Instead of the wooden cylinder, players use a playdough container. This will add to the challenge because the shapes are somewhat irregular compared to the wooden shapes.
This activity is a great way to encourage children to use math language to describe their shapes, it ends up being a fun game between the children. Also only feeling the shape, and relying on their sense of touch, versus sight, helps strengthen spatial awareness.
Another option to extend the game further is when a child successfully guesses the shape that was held in the bag, then children have to search around the room for the matching shape. This will show you how well children can recognize the shapes.
If you’re in the middle of a 3D shapes unit, make sure to add this 3D Shape Activity for Kindergarten and Preschool. It can be prepared in minutes and leads to lots of learning and engagement.