Find the Shape names a shape and asks your child to pick it out from four. The shapes are all drawn in the same white chalk, so the only thing that tells them apart is their outline.
What your child is learning
Knowing shapes by name is early geometry. It trains children to notice the properties of things: how many sides, whether the sides are straight or curved, whether the corners are sharp.
Ten shapes are used. The simplest are circle, square, triangle and star. Next come rectangle, heart, oval and diamond. The two that will probably be new are pentagon, with five sides, and hexagon, with six.
How to help
Read the instruction aloud for children who are not yet reading. The shape name is written in yellow.
Talk about why. "That is a triangle because it has three sides and three corners. Shall we count them?" Counting sides is the key to the harder shapes.
Compare the confusing pairs. A square has four sides all the same length. A rectangle has two long and two short. A circle is perfectly round, and an oval is a stretched circle. A pentagon has five sides and a hexagon has six.
Trace the outline with a finger while counting.
If your child taps the wrong one, name it for them: "That one is a diamond. Can you see the triangle?"
Taking it further
Go on a shape hunt around the house. Plates are circles, doors are rectangles, and the cells of a honeycomb are hexagons.
Draw the shapes. Being able to draw a triangle shows real understanding.
With only ten shapes, this is one of the HTML5 games a three-year-old can enjoy with a little help, and a six-year-old can finish alone.